The Perfect Beast
by Yeekininedot
Summary: Sixth year didn't quite pan out as Harry'd been hoping. All he'd wanted was a quiet year of training to protect his friends; What he got was a crash-course in politics, an introduction to the Dark Arts, and a deadly secret regarding his heritage.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter~ If I had, you'd know. And I'm pretty sure that the whole blood magic thing has been cooked up before in a Severitus! story I can't think of right now, so heads up. This story will take a few chapters before it manages to at least look a little remotely original, so bear with me. **

**The rewrite of Inheritance. **

**Plans for the future: This will not be an Overpowered!Harry, Dark/Light Lord!Harry, or a slash, or a het, or whatever else you can think of. No significant romance. And... I think thats it. Mayhaps.**

**Chapter One **

_**'The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.' **_

**_Flora Whittemore _**

Harry frowned at his face, tilting his chin one way, then another, in quiet contemplation. He unsuccessfully attempted to dismiss the thought that he was worrying over something stupid, like some foolish teenage girl who had just realized a zit adorning her nose. Yet, despite this, he couldn't stop. Something was off; something wasn't quite right. He couldn't necessarily pinpoint the reason- was it his eyes? His nose? His eyebrows? Looking at each matter directly, he appeared normal, almost boringly so, in fact; and yet, upon giving up and sending the mirror one last, puzzled glance, his face looked odd once more. Almost...foreign.

"What are you doing to my mirror?" Petunia shrieked from the hall, hands on hips and brandishing a rubber spatula aversely. From the dough clinging to the rubber, and the scent in the air, Harry could tell she was baking something rich, dark, and generally unhealthy for her beloved Duddikins. Cursing himself for not paying attention to his Aunt stomping up the stairs, he left his face as a lost cause, facing his relative squarely. She was an unfortunate member of the peculiar class of people that had a startling, impossible resemblance to an animal, and the mix between horse and human had failed to give her anything attractive to boast about. The woman, all too aware of this, took her failings out on the neighbors and her sister's son, all of which had plenty for her to complain about. "Get out, get out! I don't want you doing any of your freaky stuff here!"

Sending her an exasperated look, he said, "I can't do magic outside of Hogwarts."

An outraged silence greeted his statement, and Harry inwardly sighed. Two taboo words in one sentence; Petunia was positively apoplectic. His relatives' stubborn rejection of all things magic was rather tiresome, though Petunia never got as bad as Vernon. That was a blessing, especially at times like these. "Out! Out!" She cried, pointing her spatula down the hall and towards the stairs, where the door waited patiently. Chocolate batter stuck to the walls with the motion; the woman didn't appear to notice. "I don't want to see you skulking about anymore today until Vernon comes back! Shoo!"

Without preamble, Harry left, heading down the street and off into the nearby park. He had learned from past experience that arguing with his relatives never went well; there was no way to win. Moody's threats had helped a little, and so he had free reign throughout the house, supposedly. Yet there was no secret as to where they wished he was- anywhere but in a ten mile radius of them. To make the tension worse, Petunia had been more nervous around him then ever lately, and usually found some excuse to get him out of the house until Vernon came home. Vernon had had a shorter fuse than usual, as well; they still hadn't gotten over the whole Dudley and the Dementors event, seeing it as a warning they had to take to heart, especially with the current state of the Muggle world. It certainly didn't help that the economy had put Vernon's job at Grunnings in a precarious position.

Not that he minded. He had more freedom this way, and he'd be leaving it all soon. Thanks to Dumbledore.

The Headmaster's letter had been an enormous cause for celebration. He'd be going free, finally able to be with those of his own kind, with those that thought in similar ways. He'd be among friends, among those that accepted him as he was. Only a few more hours until midnight. A piece of cake. One more rich and chocolaty than Petunia could ever make Dudley.

With a sigh, he approached the nearby playground, flopping down upon the broken swings. But the time between his freedom and the current time would be long and torturous, a long upward slog through mud and muck.

It would be the first time he'd see Ron and Hermione after the end of Fifth year and the chaos of the Department of Mysteries. He still hadn't told them about the Prophecy; still wasn't quite sure how. Everyone -here Harry scowled- in Wizarding Britain seemed to know anyway, despite Harry's and Dumbledore's silence on the matter- but he hadn't told them personally.

_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..._

It would be dangerous. He had known for a few years that having friends would only put them into danger. But now, when the threat was real, and ever looming...

Harry leaned his head between his legs and stared at the bark chips that covered the playground. Pounded into nothing by the multitudes of children that had used the playground before he was born, they were more a layer of spongy dirt than wood chips.

But now, how could he ask them to let him rely on them? How could he, knowing full well the danger he was exposing them to? They had escaped the Department of Mysteries- barely. They had scraped past by the skin of their teeth, and, somehow, there hadn't been any lasting damage.

It could have gone worse, Harry knew. Hermione could have never woken up from Dolohov's spell. Ron could have been turned into a vegetable permanently by the brain-thing. Neville could have been tortured into insanity by Bellatrix. Sirius- Sirius _had _died. Because he had relied on his friends, he had hurt them- and his own pathetic power had not been able to save them. The Order had saved them. Had picked up the mess Harry had created and cleaned it up. Like he was some sort of baby they'd needed to save from it's own follies.

He loved Ron and Hermione more than anyone else in the world. Neville, Luna, the rest of the Weasleys- he had to protect them.

_And that is why I must become stronger, _he whispered to himself. _For them, for their sake; to protect their existence and provide something powerful for them to lean upon. _

He could do this. _No one need die for me ever again. _

_XXXXX_

"HARRY!"

A warm, bouncing bundle of brown hair took him by surprise. "Harry, it's fantastic to see you," Hermione said, taking a step back and looking him over. "Wow, and you're looking a lot better. Did you do something with your hair?"

The smile on his face became fixed. "Yeah," he said somewhat painfully. "I've had a growth spurt too-"

"That's fantastic!" Ron marched through the doorway, his face a suspicious pink. "I can now run to the press and tell them to stop putting out stuff on your potential dwarf relations."

Harry's jaw dropped. "They haven't actually been saying that, have they?" He asked in earnest, attempting to recall the Daily Prophet newspapers he'd gotten while at the Dursleys. Usually, it was no better than the stuff he wiped his arse with, and didn't bother with it- but- if they were printing such ridiculous things-

Ron grinned. "Well, maybe not," he admitted. "But I'm sure that it was on their idea list." He sat down on the bed with Hermione. "Fleur's downstairs, having one of those weird woman-fights with my mother, so I decided it'd be safer up here."

"Or they just caught you staring at Phlegm's arse," Ginny's voice came from the doorway. "Really, Ron, could you have been a little more obvious?" The suspicious pink flush to Ron's cheeks turned a deep, mottled red in his ears.

They chuckled. "Here's your breakfast, Harry," Ginny continued, dumping it on his lap. "Phlegm is Fleur," Hermione offered an explanation to Harry's confusion. "She and Bill have gotten engaged- bound to be married in the summer."

"Mum's positively apoplectic about the whole thing," Ron offered, attempting to redeem his dignity by offering his own tidbit of information. His ears continued to glow a rosy red. "Had a screaming match with Dad over it."

Harry allowed the conversation to flow over him, soothing old wounds and worries he hadn't known existed. They were here, and they were safe. The ecstasy of it made the time fly by, the news flowing over him; Tonks was feeling bad about Sirius; Percy refused to make good with the family; and Fred and George were doing fantastic in their joke shop.

Presently, Ginny left when Molly Weasley began calling for her, and she grumped her way down the stairs, leaving the Golden Trio behind to stare at each other, the mood of the conversation turning serious. Harry could see it, as if it were a thundercloud rumbling over the room. The war was suddenly very real and very present in a way it hadn't been when they'd been laughing with Ginny.

_'I think they ought to know. You do them a disservice by not confiding something this important to them.' _Dumbledore's words, spoken so softly in the Weasleys' shed the last night, returned to him. After the Headmaster had picked him up last night, he'd traveled with him by Apparition to meet the new Defense professor -Horace Slughorn- as well as talking with Dumbledore in the relative safety of the Weasley spider-infested broom shed, where he'd been told that Dumbledore wanted to take a greater hand in his education.

Harry was, to be honest, ecstatic about it. He was sure to learn all of the state of the art spells, all of the new ways to jinx and hex and-and- everything!

It was a wonderful opportunity. Such a wonderful opportunity that Harry couldn't help but think it was too good to be true. The lessons would help him protect his friends, surely, but why was Dumbledore offering them now, instead of offering them years before?

He took a deep breath. No matter. He had to tell them. "The stuff in the newspapers- the whole thing about the Prophecy- is true." Harry blurted. It was okay, to tell them this; they wouldn't ignore the danger that came hand in hand with it and they might even realize it was safer for them to be farther away from him.

For a moment, silence reigned among the three occupants of the room, the only sounds coming from beyond the door, from the kitchen a floor below. Ron finally asked, confused, "I thought the Prophecy smashed?"

"Dumbledore had a second copy," Harry said, feeling like he was confessing some dark, dangerous secret. A burden he hadn't known about was being lifted from his shoulders; suddenly, the world didn't seem so insidious after all. "And we listened to it, after... after the Department of Mysteries."

It was out. He had said it.

And they continued to stare at him, as if at a loss for words. A great and terrible dread blossomed in his chest. The thing that he had been hoping for became the thing he most feared. Merlin- would they abandon him? Would they leave? Would the danger drive them away?

Hermione finally said, with a shuddering breath, "Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry."

Ron nodded. "I don't know what you're supposed to say in this situation," he admitted. "It's horrible. But saying these sorts of things won't make it all go away, will it?" At Harry's slight shake of the head, he nodded. "But I can say that we'll be by your side, always."

He had told them everything about the prophecy. And they continued to love him as he loved them, despite the dangers.

Relief left him dizzy; Harry could only nod his response. They seemed to understand.

And yet, something kept him wary, something kept him from entirely relaxing- the image of Sirius falling into the veil, into death's grasp.

_It would be better for them, _Harry knew, _if they had backed away from me when I told them the prophecy. _But they hadn't. And, if he were honest with himself, he would have most likely crumbled into dust without their care and support. He relied on them much more than they relied on him.

That, more than anything, placed them in harm's way. And, more than anything, he knew he would truly give up if they died. "It'll be really dangerous," he said, subtly attempting to scare them, to quietly give them an opportunity to go off and save themselves. He would not drag them into hell with him. _Refused_ to.

"When have things not been dangerous?" Hermione and Ron grinned. "We've stuck by you this far, mate. A little thing like a prophecy doesn't mean anything to us!"

Harry made himself grin as well. "Alright. Thank you." He'd have to work harder to protect them if they didn't want to leave. But it was worth it- it was worth it, for them.

The Golden Trio smiled and laughed at each other, and the dark atmosphere lifted.

_XXXXX_

A week before September first rolled around, Harry and the Weasleys were being escorted to Diagon Alley by a full escort of Aurors. Eerily silent and serious, they marched in front and behind them, Ministry attire smooth and flexible, the more so for better movement. Harry found himself respecting a part of the Ministry- something that he had never thought possible, with the way he had been treated in the past. However, the escort only served to emphasize the sense of desolation that had spread through the streets. The folk that walked by did so in large groups, steps hurried and swift, faces haggard and eyes wary. The wind, when it bothered to blow, was cold and icy, as if it were made of Dementer's breath. Clothes were no guard against such a wind; Harry shivered and shared a glance with Ron and Hermione.

Voldemort's reign was sucking the life out of Diagon Alley. Windows of boarded up shops stared blindly across the street, yawning open like the maw of some terrific monster. Ghosts lurked in the corners and shadows of the buildings like dust, wisps of a time that had thought that Dark Lords were a thing of the past.

Harry shook his head. The real battles had not yet begun, and the Wizarding population had given up without a fight.

The group split up, with Hagrid -whom had invited himself along, apparently- taking Harry, Ron, and Hermione to Madam Malkin's and the rest of the Weasleys marching off in the opposite direction, headed by Mrs. Weasley. The Aurors left them to their shopping, taking up residence at the Leaky Cauldron. Hagrid stood guard outside the robe shop -Harry suspected it was simply because he couldn't fit inside the door- and the Golden Trio tumbled in, to find Madam Malkin otherwise preoccupied.

"...Not a child, in case you haven't noticed, Mother. I am perfectly capable of doing my shopping _alone_."

The sound of rustling robes was interrupted by a sharp _'ouch!' _"Watch where you're putting those pins, woman-"

"Draco."

The suave voice of Narcissa Malfoy cut off anything else that Malfoy would have said. Harry watched with interest when Malfoy obediently shut his mouth, retreating into silence.

Until, of course, he noticed them in the mirror.

"If you're wondering what the smell was, Mother, a Mudblood just walked in."

Harry watched Ron draw his wand in response. "You say that again!" He cried, arm firm and strong despite Hermione's attempts to stop him. "You- you just dare to call her that again!" Harry frowned at the picture they painted, remaining a silent bystander. The familiar anger was just as strong as it usually was at the word, but- but he didn't want to fly up in his old temper tantrum. He'd learned what happened when he did stupid stuff and didn't think of the consequences. It killed people.

"Calm down, Ron," he said firmly, before turning to the Malfoys. "After all these years, you're still resorting to childhood taunts, Malfoy." He tsked. "What would your father say?"

"A lot more than yours," Malfoy snapped. "Really, Potter, can't you think up something more creative?"

"I should be saying that to you," Harry shot back. "Do you know how many times you have attempted to slight me using my parents, or lack thereof? Do you know how many times _Voldemort_ has tried?" Uncomfortable memories sprang to mind. Stupid Voldemort. Ruining his life. "Perhaps you and the rest of your Death Eater friends should have a Harry Potter Insult Party where you try and make up creative ways to insult me."

Madam Malkin was on the verge of fainting. Sickly pale and muttering rather incoherently, she was the sheep caught between the battle of two different wolf packs. "I- A dangerous thing to say-" she mumbled, casting between the two parties.

"I see that being Dumbledore's favorite pet has given you a false sense of security, Harry Potter," Narcissa Malfoy cut in smoothly. "But Dumbledore won't always be there to protect you."

Harry narrowed his eyes at her. Tall, regal, with long blond hair, she and he were of a height, now. Her face was an expressionless mask, much like her husband's. She was beautiful, in an icy, distant sort of way- a sane version of her sister, Harry might have called her, if such a thing could have been possible. He ground his teeth at the thought of Bellatrix. "Dumbledore isn't here right now," he murmured, staring her down. She kept her eyes level with him easily. "What's stopping you? Fear? Don't you think it'd be nice to share a double cell in Azkaban with your pathetic excuse of a husband?"

Malfoy, enraged, attempted to leap off the stool and teach him a lesson. The robe he'd been trying on got in his way, and he tripped, his face turning an interesting shade of red while Ron laughed.

"Don't you talk to my mother like that, Potter!" Malfoy snarled, restrained by his mother's hand on his shoulder. "Just you wait-"

"Shush, Draco," Narcissa murmured to him. "It's alright," she said in a louder voice. "I expect Potter will be reunited with dear Sirius before I am reunited with Lucius."

Harry grinned, tauntingly. "Not if I have anything to do with it, Mrs. Malfoy."

Madam Malkin, sensing the sudden pause in conversation as Narcissa considered him with ice and something, Harry was astonished to note, like surprise, approached Malfoy and adjusted his sleeves for him with trembling hands. "I think that this left side can come up a little more, dear, let me just-"

Malfoy cried out. "Merlin, watch where those pins are going! Mother, I think we would be able to find a better seamstress at Twillfit's and Tattings."

Narcissa sniffed. "You're right, of course, Draco," she said contemptuously as she glanced at Hermione. "Now that we know what kind of scum shops here..."

Harry heard Ron choke beside him, but there was nothing they could do, with Narcissa there. She glided among them like an eagle in flight, just as graceful and a trillion times more deadly. Draco followed after, sniffing at them as he passed.

"Keep moving, _Death Eater_." Ron's voice hissed from behind him, looking almost, Harry fancied, like a snarling dog barely restrained by a leash that promised to break any coming moment. Draco's face closed in an odd way, adopting an expression of barely concealed disgust that reminded him forcefully of Lucius Malfoy. He continued forward, acting as if they were nothing but trash to be smashed beneath his shoes, and left with Narcissa.

Harry stared after them, something niggling at the back of his mind, something important that he could not grasp.

"Did you see the Malfoys?" Ron, king of the obvious, asked Hagrid once they left the shop, robes packaged into bags as light as a feather, thanks to Madam Malkin's magicking.

"Yeh, but don' mind their lot," Hagrid replied. "Diagon Alley is too public to do anythin' out of sorts." He then shook his massive head and blinked at the Trio. "You wouldn' mind if we passed by Gringotts for somethin', righ'?" Hagrid asked, surveying them seriously. "And kept it a secret tha' we went?"

Harry could feel the excitement suddenly surge in the air. Something secret? "Of course," Harry and Ron said simultaneously. "Why are we going?"

"It wouldn't be a secret if I told you," Hagrid replied. "And you'll be waitin' in the lobby anyway!"

They subsided into a rather sulky silence as Hagrid led the way, across a couple roads and onto the main Diagon Alley, to where Gringotts, the Wizarding Bank of Britain, stood in all it's alabaster glory. From his previous visits to the Bank, he knew that the majority of the bank lay far underground, protected by powerful and ancient spells and curses protecting the riches of some of the Wizarding World's most prominent families.

They mounted the steps -as pristine as the day they were carved, despite the thousands of billions of feet that had doubtless stomped up and down them daily- and entered the Bank. The goblins ran an effective business and had made themselves a reputation of being honest, if extremely grouchy, hosts.

"I'd like to make a withdrawal, please," Hagrid boomed to a goblin. The goblin peered up at him and said, icily, "Do you have a key, Mr...?"

"Hagrid will do," the half giant stated. "Here it is-" he fished for his key and waved it in the air victoriously after a few moments of plumbing the depths of his pockets. "I would like to keep these three out here, if it were possible."

The Trio groaned in disappointment. "But Hagrid!" Ron exclaimed, "you want us to just wait out here for you?"

"Yeah, I do expect that!" He bellowed as the goblin led him away to another goblin, who took him down a hall, where he disappeared.

Left to their own devices, the Gryffindors found a place to sit and attempted to come up with ideas of what Hagrid was getting from his vault.

"I bet it's some weapon of Dumbledore's," Ron said, gesticulating wildly. "Something to destroy You-Know-Who with!"

Hermione pursed her lips. "Definitely not. It's probably an artifact of some sort that'll help us win the war. Not necessarily a weapon; but a tool, I think."

Harry watched the wizards and witches walk by, business as usual despite the war. Here, at Gringotts, Purebloods and Muggleborns and in-betweens walked by each other without anyone the wiser. Why did Voldemort vouch for the Pureblood supremacy cause, when he was Half-Blooded himself?

"Mr. Potter?"

A rough voice interrupted their conversation. Harry examined the newcomer curiously. A goblin, with the clichéd exaggerated nose and small stature, stood primly before them. "Are you Mr. Harry Potter?"

"I am," Harry replied cautiously. "Who are you?"

"My name," said the goblin imperiously, "is Griphook. If you'll come this way with me?"

He set off at a swift pace, leaving Harry sitting on his bench, perplexed. He glanced at Ron and Hermione before jumping up and following the goblin. His friends shuffled after him, until, at least, another goblin intercepted them and made them stop. Harry would have stopped, as well, but his curiosity egged him on, to the point where he followed the goblin silently to his study and sat down without a complaint.

"Now, you are here, I expect, because of the notice we sent to you roughly three weeks past?"

Harry blinked. "Notice...?"

The goblin frowned. "A notice was sent to one Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging as of August the 12th."

"Ah, I wasn't there, then," Harry said, as an explanation. "And I have not been there since a couple days before that time."

By the goblin's expression, this was obviously one of the more pathetic excuses he'd heard. "Whatever the case may be," he said, words carefully pronounced, "you are here now, and we may continue with the agenda."

Harry blinked at him, hopelessly confused. He wasn't quite sure what the agenda was, or why this goblin seemed to think he wasn't worth the dirt beneath his boots, but he hoped that it wouldn't take too long. He had to return to Hermione and Ron, after all, and see the twin's joke shop. It was supposed to be quite the fantastic place-

"Here are the contents of one Sirius Black's will in regards to you," said the goblin offhandedly, as if the document weren't important, as if it weren't the desires of someone dead only months before. Harry almost choked, staring at the paper in something akin to horror.

"What are you waiting for?" Asked the goblin irritably. "Read it already."

With hands a-trembling, he picked it up, feeling his fingers burn as they touched the paper. He opened it up and, swallowing, peered inside.

Rather anticlimactically, all that he found inside was a piece of parchment decorated with a messy scrawl. He slid it free and, implacably, his eyes were drawn to the script.

_'I, one Sirius Black, do hereby claim the rights to the Houses of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, as the master to every and all residences and artifacts of the family, and do hereby distribute thus properties upon my passing. _

_I name Harry James Potter as the sole heir of all matters and items and properties of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. May you use this newfound title and power better than I did._

For a moment, Harry blinked, seeing nothing else on the paper. He'd only been _two lines_ in the entirety of Sirius' will?

Then his eyes focused on the words _heir. _"Sirius- did Sirius leave me everything?" He asked, uncomprehendingly, looking up at Griphook desperately for an answer. "Heir- what does that mean?"

Griphook stared at him as if he were the most stupid being in the world. "When the Master of a Line falls, it is left up to the Heir to take up the mantle of responsibility." At Harry's blank stare, he elaborated. "This means that he is responsible not only for the members of the family," continued in a suffering tone, "but that all property owned by the Line are his to control."

Harry continued to stare at him. "You mean-" he licked his lips. "You mean that everything of the Black family is _mine_?"

The goblin rolled his eyes. "Yes."

Sirius had left him everything he had owned. It refused to connect with reality- it remained only a fact, not a reason for emotion or celebration. The goblin, seeing that he wasn't going to interrupt any time soon, brought out a piece of paper from his desk. "The wealth the Black family owns is average as far as Pureblood families go," he said with a sniff. "If you find it advantageous to accept the inheritance, you will be able to receive legal emancipation as Master of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. This, in turn, would allow you to inherit any other potential birthrights that have been in status quo, waiting until you became an adult of Wizarding society."

"Wait! I want to accept it!" Harry said, aghast. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew that he didn't necessarily need to. Sirius had left him something- had left him the entire Black fortune, apparently. He was handing Harry the way to liberate himself from the guilt of his own death. "No, I need to accept it."

Griphook sighed in exasperation before asking, "Is that what you wish? To accept the role as the Master of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black?"

"Yes!"

With a flourish of parchment and quill, and a furious _scritch scritch, _his acceptance was made legal. "If you'll sign here, please, Mr. Potter."

Harry followed his instruction, feeling as if he were finally boarding the train that would take him to where he wanted to go. He'd been wandering blindly about the train station too much in the past; and someone had died because of a strange _something_ that held him back. But now- now he was finally boarding the train, the train he'd stared at so wistfully across the years, and it would take him- well. It didn't matter where it took him, as long as it made him stronger, so that others could rely on him, instead of the other way around.

"Congratulations, Mr. Potter," said the goblin tonelessly. "As of now, you are the Master of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. Here is a list of all that is owned by the Black line, and, subsequently, you, as well as living members you are now responsible for. He handed Harry a folder an inch thick. Harry paled. "Wait-"

"You also," Griphook ignored him with embarrassing ease, "with the acceptance of this new title, have been granted legal emancipation in the Wizarding World. This will allow you to perform your duties as Lord Black more fully than if you were not recognized as an adult-"

"Wait!" Harry cried. "What is this?" He asked, motioning towards the folder that he'd laid in his lap. "It's heavy! What do you mean, 'members of the family' I'm responsible for? What duties am I supposed to do?"

The goblin gave him such an expression of annoyance that Harry shut his mouth. "The folder," he said, speaking slowly, as if to an exceptionally dumb child, "contains a complete list of all that is owned by the Black family. This includes manors, properties, artifacts, furniture, books... everything that is owned by the Black line is, in effect, owned by you. As Lord Black, you are also responsible for other members of the Black family. Their actions will reflect your presentation to the public." Yet another sigh as the goblin rummaged through his desk once more, opening and closing drawers until a soft 'Aha!' interrupted the _whir _and _slam! _of the desk. "In this book," the goblin dropped a very dusty, very old, very _thick and heavy _tome in front of him, "you will find all that a Master of a Line needs to know in order to represent, accommodate, and ensure the continued health of his or her Line."

When Harry opened his mouth to ask for clarification, the goblin held up a hand. "Everything you need to know is in there. If you have questions after reading it through, I will be of service." His tone made it very clear that it would be in his best interests if he found all the information he needed in the book.

Reluctantly, he dragged the tome closer. It was titled _'Masters and Their Responsibilities,' _by one Yen Cachett, and rather looked like something that Hermione would enjoy reading.

It was his turn to sigh. If only he could let his friends help him! The idea was tantalizingly attractive, yet deceptively so. No, no; he could not allow himself to waver now! He had already boarded the train! "Alright," he finally, reluctantly said. "Thank you."

"There are still things we must discuss," Griphook said reluctantly. "As you have become a legal adult, you can now inherit everything that has been waiting for you to turn of a legal age."

Harry gulped. _More _surprises? More unseen consequences?

"The Potter methods for inheritance," began the goblin, "work in a much different manner than the Black line's. The Heir must either reach the age of seventeen and obtain their inheritance then, or file for independence with the Ministry. As you have obtained emancipation from simply accepting the role of Lord Black, you are free to assume all responsibility of the Potter line as well."

"What does that mean?" Harry asked suspiciously.

In response, the goblin snapped his fingers, and another inch-thick, unassuming folder lounged on the desk. "In this folder you will find everything the Potter line owns, much like the folder on the Black properties that I gave you." He sighed, as if he were an unfortunate soul damned with the duty of caring for a very stupid child. "There are no restrictions upon these titles other than the Black title." He talked swiftly, so that Harry could not interrupt him with a question. "In order to keep the Black inheritance, you must be politically active, else it will pass on to the next, most eligible male- which would, most likely be, one Lord Malfoy, with the marriage between one," he peered at a paper on his desk, "Narcissa Black and Lucius Malfoy."

_"What!" _Harry shook his head frantically. "I don't understand! Why is this so complicated? What do you mean, that if I'm not politically active, I'll lose the Lord Black title?"

"Just what I said, Mr. Potter."

"No- I mean- what defines politically active?"

The goblin snapped his fingers once more, summoning an enormous logbook that covered the room in the old, musty smell of very old and well loved books. "For the Black family, this means that the Lord Black must use the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black's Wizengamot chair in the Ministry of Magic."

For a full minute, Harry opened and closed his mouth like a fish, completely and utterly gob smacked. "I..." he said weakly. "I have a seat in the Wizengamot?"

Now Griphook had resorted to glaring at him. "Yes. You would known that if you had read the folder I'd given you. The Potter family also holds a seat in the Wizengamot, but it has been left unused for quite some time."

Harry stared at the mound the folders and the book made on his lap. They seemed to be spitefully suffocating his legs, cutting off circulation, squeezing his veins shut. The weight was nothing, however, to the one he suddenly felt on his shoulders.

In order to remain on the train going forward in life, he was going to be thrust into the world of Wizarding politics, which was greatly infected by the ever-looming shadow of the Dark Lord Voldemort. Merlin- it might as well be in the palm of his hand, with how he pulled the strings of the public so easily.

It wasn't fair!-

But no. Thinking like that wouldn't get him anywhere. He was doing this to cleanse himself of his guilt for Sirius' death, and to learn how to rely upon himself. _It's a perfect opportunity, _Harry told himself sternly. _Stop acting as though it were a curse. _

"There is one more thing, Mr. Potter," the goblin began, looking as if he had to pull his teeth out to say it. "Your parents left you a letter, to be given to you when you received the Potter inheritance."

Harry shook his head. "This isn't some great conspiracy plot, is it? Give little Harry Potter a bunch of surprises and responsibilities and then laugh at him after he falls for it all?"

Griphook's lips were the only thing that moved. "Of course not, Mr. Potter." Harry gazed at him cautiously, realizing he had insulted him. "Gringotts prides itself on being a neutral party in the Wizarding World, and to be focused on protecting the money of our clients and to help them in other relative matters."

He stood up, snapping his fingers. A pale yellow envelope appeared in his hand, which he offered to Harry promptly. "The contents of this letter are strictly personal, and are up to you to share or distribute," he said coldly.

"Turn left when you leave. Follow the hallway until you reach the main Bank lobby. Thank you for your business, Lord Potter."

Harry left, the letter clenched tightly in his fist. He'd had enough surprises for the year.

_XXXXX_

Lady Fate, of course, failed to agree with him. After he'd retreated to his room in the Weasley's, long after everyone else had fallen asleep, he stared at the little yellow envelope. A part of him wanted to open it. Another part of him wanted him to burn it.

Yet another part of him wanted him to wake up Ron and Hermione and tell them everything, everything that had happened, all the weird changes, his fear for the future, his new responsibilities, Merlin- tell them everything, dump it all on their laps, and make a decision with them.

Nevertheless, a stronger part of him demanded that he learn the lesson that Sirius' death represented -that he shouldn't rely on anyone else before he knew that he was strong enough to have them rely on him- and to continue as he had been. Harry nodded, squaring his shoulders, sitting up taller on the bed. He was on the train already. No backing off. No stops or buying a new train ticket.

Decisively, he tore open the envelope, letting it fall to the bed, forgotten in favor of the letter itself.

'_Dear Harry,' _it read,

_If you are reading this, then it is more likely then not that we are gone. I cannot imagine how the life you have led has been spent, but I hope that you have been happy. I'm sure that Remus and Sirius have been taking good care of you. More loyal friends you may never meet. _

_However, this letter was not written for pure good-wishing, Harry. Indeed, I only hope that you will be able to understand what we did, and why we did it. _

_You are not James Potter's son. I loved James, I do love him. I will forever do so. Yet, it became clear, when you were born, that James was not the father. A few months into your life, you looked nothing like us. And it was obvious that that drunken night I spent partying and celebrating with my friends a few months earlier carried a secret more significant than I expected. _

_I told James my suspicions, and he helped me hide your true face with a blood ritual._

_You must understand why we did this, Harry. James' family, while fine with allowing their son marry a muggleborn, would never settle with having a bastard child that was not even related to them as the heir to the line. So we hid the evidence, and you were born a few weeks premature. The ritual will begin to fade when your magic reaches its maturity, which is usually around the age of seventeen. This secret will have died with us, and now lives on with you. Whom you decide to tell is up to you._

_I know not whom your true father is, what he does in life or what he is like. _

_If you are interested in finding this man, an Ancestry potion would give you his name. We would have done it earlier, but such tests are dangerous on children. Now, however, you can do the test without any issues. The ingredients for the potion are easily accessible at an average apothecary- the funding for the potion can be found in your vault. Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts and someone we expressly trust, should have the key if you have not been given it already. _

_The existence of this letter, and therefore the secret contained within, has not been disclosed to anyone. No matter who your blood father is, James and I will always love you. James is your father, if not by blood than in law, and if you decide to seek this man out, then do so. It will make no difference to us. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, our greatest friends, will support you no matter what if you decide to tell them. _

_With Love,_

_Lily and James'_

The train doors slammed shut behind him.

_XXXXX_

Harry floated through the next day feeling as if he'd spent the night doing everything but sleep.

Which, unfortunately, was rather correct.

He hadn't been able to sleep after reading his parent's letter. The thought of who he actually was sent tingles of excitement and terror down to his very toes. That he had been living a lie his entire life had, somehow, not hurt him as much as he had thought it might. True, he had felt betrayed in some half-formed, ill-defined way, but the feeling had been fleeting as the excitement coursed through him.

The winds of possibility had breathed new life into his hope for a family- which, he had realized soon after reading the letter, had never truly died, but faded slowly into the background. He could be anyone- anyone at all! A long lost relative of the Weasley's, Dumbledore's nephew... anything was suddenly possible, and he loved it.

For a time.

And then reality had slowly, painfully settled in.

His family could be anyone, yes. But there were thousands of people out there, of different backgrounds and beliefs. His father could be a Dark wizard- how Voldemort would love the irony of that- or he could be dead- or, even worse, he could be someone who would only use Harry's reputation to make himself look better.

"Bye, Harry," Hermione said, looking at him concernedly as she and Ron dragged their suitcases away. "We'll find you once the Prefect meetings are over."

Harry forced himself to smile. From the look on Hermione's face, he hadn't done a very good job. "Alright," he called. "See you then."

Left to his own devices, he found himself hiding in a compartment by himself, carefully hiding his face from anyone that peered inside, looking for the Boy-Who-Lived or their friends. The Daily Prophet's articles on his status as the 'Chosen One' had not done anything to help him escape the public's eye- had, somehow, increased it to a point that it was suffocating to walk about in.

And, to think... if he admitted the fact that he didn't know the identity of his father, it'd be an even greater scandal than ever before, and, if he did ever find his real father... the Daily Prophet would cover every single moment of it.

Did he want his relationship to begin like that? If it happened?

No, no, he didn't.

But, much to his misfortune, he'd reached his magical maturity a year earlier than he was supposed to- the blood ritual James and Lily had performed on him was wearing off before his seventeenth year.

Thus, Harry found himself facing a problem he wasn't quite sure on how to fix; how was he going to hide the changes? People were going to notice, soon, that he looked...odd, not normal. Who could say that they might not have noticed already?

Fear froze his lungs. It'd be so much easier, whispered a voice in his ear, if you allowed yourself to tell Hermione and Ron... to ask for their help... Yet the voice, Harry knew, was only his mind taunting him, not a thing that could seriously make him deviate from his path anymore. He simply had to think clearly, rationally- he needed a spell to hide things. Okay. That would be... a Charm? Probably? He could look it up when they got to Hogwarts.

_See? _He told the voice smugly. _I'm already relying on myself! _

The opening of the compartment door interrupted his thoughts and, looking up, he met the warm brown eyes of Neville Longbottom. Behind him, a girl with long hair and large, misty eyes was easily recognizable as Luna Lovegood.

"Come on in!" He called, patting the seat next to him. "There's space."

The two piled in, placing their luggage upon the rack and sitting themselves down. "How are you guys?" He asked, shifting to be able to look at them better. "Do anything interesting over the summer?"

Neville immediately smiled. "I got a new wand," he said proudly, brandishing it. "Gran thought I deserved it, with what happened in the Department of Mysteries."

"The Quibbler has been selling more than ever," Luna offered her own tidbit to the conversation. "Do you think we'll still do the DA meetings this year?"

Harry frowned. "Well," he began hesitantly. "There isn't much reason now that Umbridge is gone, right?" _Nor,_ Harry thought, _would I be able to get stronger as easily if the meetings were to begin again. _It had been a rather unconscious decision on his own part that he was going to spend much of his extra time practicing spells and magic, and wouldn't have much time to devote to something like the DA.

"I liked the DA!" Protested Neville. "It was fun."

Luna nodded in an odd, spacey sort of way. "I enjoyed the meetings, too." she said. "It was like having friends."

Harry suppressed a rising bubble of awkwardness and said neutrally, "maybe. I'll think about it."

The rest of the train ride passed relatively quietly. Neville and Harry's visit to Slughorn's compartment was boring and tedious, but the time afterwards saw Ron and Hermione join them, returning from the Prefect meeting. The ambience was comfortable, and Harry found himself looking forward to the time where he would be able to show them that they didn't need to worry about their lives so much anymore. He had a debt to them, a debt that was long and large and enormous; but he would fix it, because he could not live with himself if he did not.

_XXXXX_

School began with one day of novelty, of asking old friends how they'd been and how their summer was, before falling into a pattern of bored resignation customary to school.

Well.

Almost.

Harry huddled beneath his Invisibility Cloak, warily watching Mrs. Norris pad her way silently down the hallway. Filch, damn the man, wouldn't be too far behind- and the book that he'd managed to steal from the Forbidden Section of the library would be found to be missing, and the security of the library would be raised- which, Harry thought, he _really_ didn't need.

He held his breath as she marched past, her footsteps the only sound in the dimly lit hall. She never paused, and she never looked back. Harry slumped with relief and heaved a sigh, glancing at the book in his hands. Rather boringly, it was only titled _Glamours, _without an author or a name on it. But it was probably what he was looking for- finally. Just in time, too- Malfoy had laughed at him for getting a nose job over the summer, yesterday.

With a bounce in his step, he emerged from his hiding place to meet the bloodshot eyes of Filch.

For an eternity, he stared back, shocked, horrified, before Filch broke the eerie silence that so often swept through the halls of Hogwarts. "Is someone there, Mrs. Norris?" He asked, waving his lamp. Harry's heart jumped into his mouth when he thrust it forward, into his face. "There is!" He cried. "I see your shadow, you cowardly rat!"

Harry's body didn't wait around for his mind to catch up. He flung himself out of the hallway and into the nearest doorway, pressing himself as tightly as he could into the wall, struggling to control his pounding heart.

Filch and his cat lurched by, the light of the lantern moving swiftly down the hallway, until Harry watched them turn a corner and disappear.

Harry slumped to the ground, relief making him go slack. He was safe. He'd done it. Sort of. The book was his, but he wouldn't be able to steal from the library as easily to find books for heritage potions.

With a shrug, he made to stand up and head off to Gryffindor Tower, yet something large, faintly glowing, and nostalgic held him fast. He turned around and faced the room.

Merlin. It was- it was the Mirror of Erised, just as it had looked in his First Year.

Just as he had, so many years ago, Harry tremulously approached the Mirror, feeling his throat constrict. Would he see-

As before, he appeared in the mirror, much larger, now, the changes casting foreign shadows across his face. And yet, despite it, despite the fact that he wasn't their son, Lily and James Potter stood by him, silently comforting, silently supporting him. He checked behind him to see-

-but no. It was a lie. The Mirror of Erised only showed dreams and desires. Not the truth. Harry shook his head and fled for Gryffindor Tower. Why was the Mirror back? When had it returned to Hogwarts? How had it returned to Hogwarts? What was it doing there?

Yet another mystery he'd try and solve by himself, later. For now, however, the sky was lightening, and he had a glamour he desperately needed to finish.

Harry had never been the smartest kid in the class. He'd always relied upon Hermione for help when something difficult came by- she was the true brains of the school. She, Harry knew as he looked at himself desolately in the mirror, would have been able to help him. The book made no sense. He needed answers swiftly and immediately, but the stupid thing kept on going on long winded rants about some obscure sort of magic- it was as if the author couldn't keep to one topic, and had some disease of the mind that made him ramble.

And yet, he couldn't simply give up. Giving up would mean- would mean that he would lose the family he might be so close to getting.

So he stood in the Gryffindor boys' bathroom, staring at his reflection resolutely. _"Celodere," _he said, firmly, waving his wand in a spiral motion. He frowned as nothing happened. His hair still looked too manageable, his nose was too straight, his eyes were too bright, his body too tall -Hermione called it a growth spurt- and his skin too pale.

_"Abstrudo,"_ He tried again, keeping the image of the old Harry in his mind. The book had said that this glamour would not work if the image in his mind was too weak. He hadn't wanted to use it -when had his mental prowess ever shown itself to be exceptional?- but it was worth a shot.

And, amazingly, it worked on his first try. He gaped as his face suddenly twisted, becoming an unnatural blur, as if someone had taken an eraser to his face. It was all he could do to keep the spell going, to keep the image of his face in mind- he felt nothing, but the aesthetic effect of the spell was stomach churning.

It took only a moment, and his face and body had subtly changed, to where he was the good old Harry once more.

He nodded to the Harry in the mirror. So what if he would be living a lie? He was protecting his potential family this way and learning how to stand on his own two feet. Killing two birds with one stone.

Grinning, he took his morning shower and hid the book underneath his bed. Life wasn't so bad after all.

_XXXXX_

While the library ended up being officially covered in wards, so that the librarian would know every single person whom entered all sections of her library, Harry's success with the glamours after only a few minutes of practicing kept him cheerful all throughout the day. Even Defense Against the Dark Arts, which Snape had finally convinced Dumbledore into allowing him to teach, hadn't been able to destroy his good mood.

Snape, Harry recalled, had gone on for an inordinate amount of time about the Dark Arts. Not only that, but he had baited Harry in front of the entire class- attempted to force him to do a nonverbal spell, despite the fact that he hadn't ever done it before- and then had had the temerity to assign him detention!

How was he supposed to get stronger if he spent the time scrubbing the floors of the dungeons?

Potions, however, headed by Slughorn, was less painful then he had imagined it to be. In fact- Harry grinned to himself- it had been the exact opposite of painful. He had borrowed a book from an old cupboard and had gotten an easy Outstanding on his potion with help from the Half-Blood Prince.

And, thus, it didn't matter to Harry that the forbidden section was impossible to get into, now; he had found the heritage potion in his potion's book- and, even better, it didn't take too long to make- only a week.

All that mattered, then, was getting the ingredients.

Because of the impossibility of visiting an apothecary without drawing up some suspicious questions, Harry was forced to pick from two possible victims; Severus Snape and Horace Slughorn. They both, Harry knew, had their separate potion ingredient stores, and they both had their different personalities.

And that, Harry thought, was why he was going to steal from Slughorn.

"Good luck, Harry." Said Hermione as she and Ron watched him leave the Common Room for his detention. "Don't let him get you down."

Harry waved and shut the door behind him. He patted his pocket to make sure his Invisibility Cloak was on him -he never went anywhere without it, anymore- and set off trotting towards the dungeons. Despite it being early September, the air was chilly, and the temperature continued to drop as he hurried down the stairs and into the dungeons, where he felt his hands turn to large blocks of ice.

He wasn't quite sure how he was going to steal from him, but he knew that he was going to, somehow. A chance would come up or something.

Forcing a somber expression onto his face, he knocked on the door.

"You're late, Potter," he heard Snape hiss from inside. "Get in."

Harry spent the next hour or so mindlessly scrubbing desks. Despite it being hardly half a week into the school year, Harry found himself suppressing shudders of disgust. What did some people _do_ to their desks? It shouldn't be possible for one desk to have grown a green fungus all along the bottom; it shouldn't have been possible for another to have half of it's leg broken off.

He was up to his elbows in nameless amounts of muck, his fingers raw from attempting to scrub a suspicious looking red stain from the tabletop without magic, when the door slammed open. Harry watched with interest when he recognized McGonagall. "We have another situation, Severus," she said, urgently.

Immediately, Snape was on his feet and marching towards the door. He seemed to remember Harry at the last moment and spun around to face him. "Clean up, leave."

Harry blinked owlishly after the two adults. Curiosity demanded that he follow them to see what happened; Snape's potion stores demanded that he raid them and run.

On the spot, he decided to do both.

He fled to the little cabinet that Snape always kept locked and muttered, "_Alohamora," _keeping an ear out for returning Defense teachers. It sprung open at his insistence and he blinked through the ingredients that Snape had collected. Newt's eyes... essence of nettle... Belladonna... He grabbed more than he thought he'd need and relocked the cabinet, hurriedly stashing the potions stuffs into his pockets and threw on the Cloak. Snape wouldn't notice if he didn't clean _everything_. Right?

Harry found Snape and McGonagall only with a Point Me charm and very swift legs. He caught a glimpse of them hurrying into the Infirmary and ducked inside before McGonagall shut the door behind them.

"I'm not quite sure what's wrong with him, Severus-" McGonagall began, speaking in a rushed, worried voice. Harry stared at her, and then attempted to peer around her at the figure she was standing over. Madam Pomfrey bustled over with a vial of blue liquid in her hand and went to the other side of the bed, pulling her patient towards her.

"Come now, Albus," she said in her best matronly voice. "Drink it, swallow it down."

Albus... Harry couldn't suppress a gasp. _Dumbledore _was the one, laying prone on the bed?

"The Calming Draught won't help," said Snape, whom was standing at the foot of the bed. "Give me the potion he really needs."

Pomfrey stared up at him in shock. "But Severus! You know what that potion does better than anyone here! It kills him-"

"If we do not give it to him he will die as he lays." The Slytherin's voice was nothing more than a hiss. "If you have any better ideas, share them! Else do it."

McGonagall left the bedside and retreated into Madam Pomfrey's office, to return with a vial of disgusting-looking muck, much like the Polyjuice Potion he and Ron and Hermione had made back in their Second year. Harry moved as she took Dumbledore from Pomfrey and set him up on her lap, like one might do a child. Harry choked. Now that he could see him-

Dumbledore looked dead. His face had been written upon by old age's impartial pen in the space of a few hours, it seemed. Hadn't he just seen him at the evening dinner?

But no, Harry realized, staring down at him. No, he hadn't seen him. Dumbledore had been absent from dinner for the past two nights. Even, perhaps, for the past two days.

Where had he gone? What had happened to him? Why had he gone? The questions vanished form his mind when he saw his arm. The entire limb, instead of simply the hand, was covered in a filthy disease of sickly black. Yet, as he watched, the black surrendered slowly, to reveal the pale flesh of an old man.

The tension slowly leaked out of the room as the darkness faded from the Headmaster's arm, as his face turned a slightly normal flesh color instead of a pasty white. "He'll yet live," said Snape, his eyes dark. He hadn't moved from the foot of the bed.

Madam Pomfrey snarled at him with surprising ferocity. "Not if he continues to use that potion, Severus!"

McGonagall sighed. "Poppy, calm down. You can't yell at Severus for saving the Headmaster's life. It is the Headmaster's decision with what to do with his life, and we are simply the ones that have been selected to help."

Silence reigned for a time in the Hospital Wing. It was of the sort that crashed against his ears in deafening waves.

Dumbledore was dying?

It was a long while before anyone moved. McGonagall was the first to stand up. Her face, Harry spied, was that of a woman whom felt the world on her shoulders. "I'm off to sleep," she said. "Perhaps all three of you should do so, as well. Don't forget to lock the door, Poppy, and to place a glamour on him so that he looks like a student." She motioned to Dumbledore and then marched out of the Wing, looking as if she wouldn't mind if she had a couple of Death Eaters to duel to ease her stress.

Snape left soon after her. Harry followed him, more slowly, and listened to Madam Pomfrey as she locked the door behind them.

Dumbledore was dying?

Surely he had heard that incorrectly. Surely his ears had misinterpreted everything. Surely this was a bad joke.

'Dumbledore can't die!' Harry wanted to scream into the dark hallways of the peaceful, sleeping Hogwarts. 'He's the bastion of the Light!'

The darkness laughed uproariously.

_XXXXX_

Harry sat morosely in Myrtle's bathroom, staring at the snake on the faucet without really seeing it. The broken mirrors threw his reflection back at him spitefully ten times, a hundred, a thousand; a little boy too pathetic to be able to rely on himself- forever a parasite to other people, people who would die because of him.

The minute he had gotten back to Gryffindor Tower he had woken Ron and Hermione and told them everything he'd seen in the Infirmary. They'd listened to him, eyes quietly serious, mouths and chins set, and told him, 'let's talk to Dumbledore about it.'

And, thus, they would go tomorrow night, after classes ended. They'd march up to Dumbledore's office and tell Dumbledore they knew- they knew that he was dying, and wanted to help him.

Yet Harry couldn't help but think that he'd failed his friends yet again. He'd pulled them into a potentially dangerous situation without thinking; what if Dumbledore accepted their help, and let them go off on missions for the Order or something similar? It would be Harry's fault if they died, because he had been the one to get them involved.

In the first serious situation that had happened, he had immediately gone to the comfort and strength of his friends; immediately burdened them with his issues, like some child would their parent, and left them to deal with it. Harry shook his head sharply. No, no! He was on the train already- why did he keep going back?

He stood up, shaking his head. _Sitting in the bathroom, moping like Moaning Myrtle, won't fix anything, _he told himself sternly. _Stop acting like such a baby. _

The cauldron he'd borrowed from Slughorn stood on an old toilet seat, hidden in the stall. Water simmered inside, quiet and clean. He'd been forced to choose the abandoned girl's bathroom as his place to brew the heritage potion. When he'd gone to the Room of Requirement, it had refused to open for him, no matter how much he thought or paced or focused. And, thus, he had ended up following Plan B- to swear Myrtle to secrecy and use the bathroom as he and Ron and Hermione had done so many years past.

Just as he was going to add the first of the ingredients he'd stolen from Snape, however, the sounds of footsteps echoed through the bathroom.

Jumping, he threw his Cloak over him, to have his heart leap into his mouth when he came face to face with one very angry, very pissed off Severus Snape.

Harry didn't move. Didn't breathe. Didn't do _anything. _Snape was looking through him, surveying the bathroom, the stall that held Harry's still-warm cauldron.

"I know that you're here, thief." He called, turning in a careful circle. Harry remained desperately frozen, hoping beyond hope that Snape would depart and leave Harry with the mess he'd made of his nerves. "I put tracking spells on all the ingredients and their containers. I am no Gryffindor, to be stolen easily from."

Harry allowed himself the merest inhale of breath, if only to satisfy his burning lungs. Snape's wand suddenly whipped in his direction. _"Petrificus Totallus!" _

He ducked in just enough time. The spell slammed into the wall, bringing Myrtle wailing from her toilet pipe. Upon seeing Snape and his wrath, she paused and began sinking back into the stone of the floor.

"Hold it!" Snape snarled. "You! Ghost! Do you know of anyone that uses this bathroom for a potions lab?"

Myrtle stared at him, eyes big and round, only the upper half of her body visible above the floor. Harry took advantage of Snape's diverted attention and made sure that his Cloak covered him completely. He hugged his Potions book to his chest as if it were his only friend and glanced desperately at the darkness of the hall, visible through the open doorway. If only he could make it there- past Snape, somehow-

_Merlin _was he in trouble. _Merlin_ was Snape scary when he was thoroughly angry. _Merlin _how he wished Ron and Hermione were there to help him.

The last thought made him stiffen. No- he could not rely upon them any longer- he had to stand by himself. He could escape Snape. Yes- had he not thwarted Voldemort himself six times before? All he needed was some luck and the right opportunity to show itself.

"Tell me, ghost!" Snape snapped, leveling his wand at her. Myrtle reared back as if it were a snake. "I know that someone has been using this place!"

Myrtle shook her head, frantically, yet remained silent. Snape surveyed the girl's bathroom with angry eyes. Harry willed himself not to shrink into the nearby wall when his dark eyes passed over him. "It does not matter- worthless ghost- I will catch him anyway-"

The girl suddenly went ramrod straight and shot herself up out of the floor. Harry jumped at the sudden motion, and Snape whipped back towards her. "You- You-" Harry could have kissed Myrtle. She was getting into one of her great temper tantrums. Forsaking caution for swiftness, he crouched down low and scurried past the wall, holding his breath as he passed by near Snape and Myrtle.

"-hateful man! That you would call _me_ worthless, _me_, a ghost, who can't affect the physical plane? That you would flaunt your _mortal_ life to a poor _immortal_ ghost like me!"

Harry fled through the entrance and ran without stopping until he reached Gryffindor Tower. There, he threw his things under his bed and flung himself under his covers, reapplying glamours be damned.

He'd had enough for one night.

_XXXXX_

The gargoyles that stood sentry before the Headmaster's study stared at the Trio's attempts to visit Dumbledore impassively. They'd been listing off candy names for the past twenty minutes without success; after having said everything from lollipops to Skiving Snack Boxes, Ron was ready to head back.

"We're not even sure if he's out of the Infirmary or not," said Ron. "He hasn't been at the Head Table."

Harry shook his head. "I checked before going to lunch today," he replied. "There wasn't anyone there."

They each shared a nervous glance. Hermione said hesitantly, "Perhaps we should come another day?"

"Another day for what, if I might ask?"

Harry leapt out of his skin before realizing the voice wasn't Snape's. He turned, meeting the blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore. He looked a lot better, Harry realized. More... alive. The memory of the old man on the bed returned to him.

That they were the same man... it was almost impossible.

But no, there was his cursed hand, blackened and dead, and the skin too pale to be healthy. His eyes seemed to be the only thing that shone about him, suddenly.

"We wanted to talk to you," Hermione was saying. "Is this a bad time...?"

Dumbledore gave them a grandfatherly smile. "No, not at all. Come in." He passed them, saying, "Airheads."

Ron groaned. "_That_ was the password? Merlin, I had no idea that that was a candy!"

Hermione smiled and rolled her eyes, despite the seriousness of their mission. "That's because it's Muggle, Ron."

Harry chuckled, following Dumbledore up the spiral staircase and sitting down with the rest when Dumbledore bid them to. After offering them some lemon drops, he twinkled at them merrily. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

A slight awkward silence fell over the Trio. Hermione and Ron looked at him for help, and Harry felt his pride swell. There- they were looking to him for help. They were relying on him. "Well..." he began. "I saw you, Sunday," he confessed honestly. "And I became worried. You're the leader of the Light; if anything were to happen to you..."

Dumbledore stopped twinkling at them, his face suddenly becoming more somber, as when he talked of Voldemort. "I had hoped that you, of all people, would not find out," he said. "This is not information that should be publicly discussed."

"We would never-"

"I know that, Harry." He said. "Yet things slip with even the best of intentions." A pause.

Harry took advantage of it. "We wanted to help you, if we could," he tried. "Why did you disappear from the school? What did that to your hand?"

Dumbledore's blue eyes pierced him through, leaving him feeling as if he'd been hung up to dry. Harry shut up immediately. "That, my boy, will be addressed in the lessons I will give you this year."

He blinked at the unexpected turn of events. He had been wondering when they would begin, yes, but... Beside him, Hermione gasped. "Lessons?"

"Yes," the Headmaster said simply.

"When will they begin?"

The elder in front of them nodded his head, as if to himself. "I will contact you when I can, regarding them." And then he smiled, asked them how they were enjoying the year, and had them on their way to the Gryffindor tower long before they realized that they hadn't gotten any answers.

"He said that he'd tell you later, while you were doing lessons..." Hermione said uncertainly, as they said their goodnights for the night in the Common Room. "So, perhaps, then...?"

Harry nodded. "Must be."

"Man, I can't wait to hear what he teaches you," Ron said, as they marched up the stairs. "I bet it'll be tons of powerful jinxes... can you imagine how you'll be able to prank Malfoy with them?" He chuckled. "Night, Harry," he called, as he headed to bed.

"I'll be there soon," said Harry as he moved towards the bathroom. "Night."

_XXXXX_

Inside the loo, he stared at himself in the mirror.

He'd have to do it, he knew.

Snape had a tracking spell on his potion ingredients that Harry hadn't suspected. The longer they were held in Gryffindor Tower, the more likely Snape was to become suspicious of him. He had to move them to a place where only he could go- to a place where Snape wouldn't be able to find them, no matter how he tried.

But could he do it?

His reflection stared back at him, his nose too straight, eyebrows arched to a foreign degree, his skin too pale, his eyes too bright. Yes. He could do it.

For the sake of a family, even if it were the slimmest chance... yes.

After reapplying his glamours, he threw his Cloak over him and, taking the ingredients with him, returned to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

The school was eerily gloomy, with the shadows climbing the walls in unnatural patterns, as if they had twisted their forms to seem the more sinister for passersby. Hogwarts, Harry decided, seemed to adopt a new sort of personality in the night. What was friendly and supporting in the light became frightful and sinister in the dark.

Despite himself, Harry couldn't help but a tremble of fear as he passed through the silent passageways. He was alone, without the comfortable bodies of Hermione and Ron nearby; he wasn't powerful, no matter how he told himself he was going to change that; and he had an insane Dark Lord hungering after his lifeblood with too many followers all too willing to do his dirty work for him. Only the most foolish person in the world _wouldn't_ be afraid.

Not that it helped.

When he reached the girl's loo, he stood in the entrance and strained his ears as he could not his eyes, searching, almost desperately, for anything that would alert him to the presence of anyone untoward.

And then fear rushed him forward- for what if Snape realized his ingredients were changing locations, and came to investigate? On a whim, he checked the stall, and found his cauldron, laying where he had set it, cold and untouched. He picked it up with him and felt a sharp ping in his hands. Somehow, he sensed a ward being disrupted.

If Snape hadn't been coming already, he'd be hurrying over now.

Cursing, Harry fled to the sinks, finding the snake-adorned one almost immediately.

_'Open,' _he hissed, focusing on the image of the snake.

The faucet began to glow, sending shadows dancing and writhing across the ceiling as if in celebration. It began to spin and slowly succumbed to the earth, exposing a large pipe.

Harry stared into the yawning darkness, feeling as if, for some reason, he were taking a leap of faith, or some other grand act. But that was stupid, wasn't it?

He shook his head. He didn't have a choice, did he? So he jumped, jumped into the darkness, and held his breath and hoped that nothing untoward would be waiting for him in ambush.

For a moment, there was nothing but complete and utter darkness, and the wind. It ran fingers through his hair and quested through his clothes, leaving him feeling vulnerable and helpless; and then he was free, free to slam into a pile of old dead rat skeletons and stone. Harry gazed about him, and then glanced up, noting the soft light he saw so very high above him. _'Close,' _he hissed, loudly, his heart thundering in his ears. If it didn't, and the opening yawned open for Snape to topple down...

But it closed with the merest whisper of fallen dust, and Harry turned, satisfied, to the passageway he and Ron had traveled together through in their Second year. _"Lumos," _he murmured, staring intently to the shadows ahead. The light paved the road ahead of him, revealing nothing more but more slime on the walls and more gloom. Shuddering, he turned to the cauldron in his hand and shrunk it, placing it in his pocket with the stolen ingredients.

The tunnel was as silent as a grave, a sense of deathlessness permeating through the air. Harry felt as if he were walking in a place that, despite the eons, would never feel the passage of time, nor the petty politics of mortal man. It was as if he were in a place that lay unconnected with the world, and only he, as a Parselmouth, had been able to access it, to transcend the planes of the mortal.

He passed the old basilisk skin he dimly recalled being there, looking untouched and pristine, the same poisonous green, the same gigantic size. The hair on the back of his neck lifted as he left it behind, having the uncomfortable feeling that he was inviting an enormous predator to attack him.

And then, suddenly, he found himself face to face with a great, looming pile of rocks. With chagrin, he realized he'd forgotten that the Chamber of Secrets had had a cave in, because of that idiot Lockhart.

Yet, as he was already this far...

Harry waved his wand. _"Depulso!" _

A large part of the rocks vanished as if they'd never existed. Repeating the performance a couple of times until he was able to pass through the tunnel without clambering over piles and piles of rock, Harry moved forward, wishing more then ever before that someone like Ron or Hermione were with him. Even if they were unconscious, or gibbering in fear, or screaming at him for whatever reason- some company would be nice.

But he was being stupid, he knew, and he ignored his desire and met the true end of the passage, a solid wall of stone endorsed with two great, entwined serpents, their emerald eyes glittering with something more than simple beauty.

_"Open," _Harry hissed once more, feeling a great pulsing, nameless excitement echo throughout his being as they opened at his command, revealing a long, dimly lit cavern that stretched into eternity and never stopped. He stepped out into it, eyes wandering to the carcass of the basilisk. It lay where he had slain it four years previous, its eyes clouded by defeat, its body broken by its submission to death.

Harry shuddered as it stared at him almost accusingly and averted his gaze. Everything was as he had remembered. The gigantic statue of Salazar Slytherin, the serpentine columns; Harry felt that, if he looked swiftly enough, he'd catch a glimpse of Ginny Weasley laying at Slytherin's feet, dying as Tom Riddle sucked the life from her-

He closed his eyes. Perhaps he had made the wrong decision, in coming here. Yet turning back felt like the greater sin than moving forward; it was as if the Chamber of Secrets had just begun its judgment of him, and that succumbing to his feelings of unease would only result in his untimely death or 'disappearance,' as no one would find him down here.

Well.

Unless Voldemort decided to be uncharacteristically sentimental and visited the place, he'd never be found.

He shivered and walked forward, staring up at the great statue. How many of Slytherin's descendants had stood where he was now, looking on their ancestor? What had they thought, what had they felt? Had they all agreed with his blood supremacy mantra? Had any other Parselmouth, other then a Slytherin, visited the place, as he was?

Harry sighed and drew out his cauldron from underneath his pocket, unshrinking it and placing it upon the stone floor. A problem presented itself- how was he to get water, in which to make his potion?

He flushed, and the stare of the great statue seemed to turn disapproving. A charm that Flitwick had been teaching them- _Aguamenti? _came to mind.

Giving it a shot, he waved his wand and muttered the words. Water gushed from his wand and sloshed to the floor. Harry grinned and filled his cauldron before lighting a small fire beneath it. "Three medium sized leaves of Belladonna...two thimblefuls of 'essence of nettle'...bubotuber puss... and four dried leaves of the Chinese Chomping Cabbage," he murmured to himself, sliding the required ingredients out of his pockets and setting them near his cauldron. The Chamber was wet, and cold, and Harry felt as if he were being incessantly watched, but- but he felt, somehow, impossibly, that it was okay, because the Chamber of Secrets was somewhere where he _belonged_, as if something inside him clicked with the place.

Harry shook his head. _"Tempus,"_ he murmured, stretching his limbs. That was a stupid thing to think.

The resulting time made him gasp and leap to his feet. It had taken him a complete four and a half hours to do a few simple steps. The sun would be rising in a few more hours.

He yawned and applied a stasis charm to his heritage potion and dared to glance about the chamber. The eyes of multiple snakes glittered back, smirking, jeering, laughing at him and his attempts to begin relying upon himself. Harry drew himself up and glared back at them.

They snickered and did not care.

_XXXXX_

His days began to follow a simple pattern.

During the day, Harry devoted himself to pretending that he wasn't hiding anything from his friends. He lost to Ron at chess and masqueraded doing his homework with Hermione. The professors were only too willing to help with this; six years, apparently, meant six essays to complete each night. Hermione lectured them on the benefits of time management, but Ron and Harry hadn't been listening to her for six years; weren't about to, in fact. Grades had never really mattered to them as they did to Hermione.

At night, however, he took great care to sneak to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom at random hours of the night -just in case someone saw something suspicious one night and visited the same time another- and to slide down the pipe into the Chamber of Secrets, where he would check on his potion and add whatever ingredients necessary, under the gaze of the silent stone carvings that seemed more sentient than healthy for anyone.

Then he'd force himself to take out his book on glamours and read it.

The glamours he used now, he'd come to realize with some chagrin, were horribly weak. Not only did they last for only a few hours, but they could be destroyed with a simple _Finite Incantatem. _The book had an entire section of it devoted to Anchoring- which, Harry had finally concluded, was applying glamours to a magical object and making them permanent- but not only was the author displaying an uncanny knack for having long-winded and dry explanations, but he used big words that Harry didn't understand. The book was slow reading, and Harry chaffed at the pace, thinking of another book lurking beneath his bed. He had other things to do, other things to read.

The third Tuesday of the year found Harry deep within the bellies of the school, standing above his almost complete Heritage Potion.

"...and a dosage of the person's blood," he murmured, reading the Prince's book on the floor as he stood above it. Taking a silver knife from his pocket and mentally apologizing to Hermione for borrowing it, he slashed into the meat of his palm. The potion didn't specify how _much _blood; it'd be better to be safer than sorry.

Pain lanced through his arm and he struggled not to cry out. _Really, Harry? _he taunted himself as he watched red drip into the potion, turning it a blinding white. _Endured the Cruciatus and Voldemort touching your scar and you can't deal with a little cut? Pathetic. _

Harry watched the potion, uncertain. The book and the Half-Blood Prince hadn't said what to do after he'd applied his blood; had seemed to think it would be obvious. Under his gaze the cauldron began releasing an abnormally large amount of steam, and- Harry couldn't suffocate a small gasp- began to form distinct letters.

_Lily Potter _

Something inside him he hadn't known was tight relaxed. Despite the contents of the letter his folks had sent him, he'd been afraid somewhere, deep inside, that Lily wasn't his mother either, and that her sacrifice had been for a boy that wasn't even of her blood. His doubts had been proved false, and he couldn't help but grin.

This was so exciting! It was like finding a new Harry beneath the old, like fueling an old dream, long forgotten since his entrance into the Wizarding world- _Merlin, _a family-

And then the steam coalesced into another name, and Harry couldn't contain his excitement; his hands shook as he cradled his cut arm and daubed it with his sleeve, he shuddered and gasped and _hoped_-

_Tom Marvolo Riddle Junior_


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Alrighty. I hope this chapter meets all yer folks' expectations. Mii. **

**Anyway. Thank you to all that reviewed! My gosh XD makes my toes all warm and tingly. To your review, MalenkaMaus, I wrote Inheritance originally when I was... oh... 13 or 14. It's a couple years later, and I think that's what changed my writing. I've not really written anything since then- only multiple rewrites of Inheritance that I scrapped before starting this one. To points brought up in MistressofDeathSarena's review, I would simply like to say that I'll explain why Harry didn't stay with Remus and Sirius in a couple chapters. **

**Thanks**

**Yeekininedot**

_Chapter Two_

_'Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.' _

_-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe_

_"Propulso!" _

A long, flickering shadow sailed across the Chamber walls like a bird taking flight. But if it was a bird, it was an unnatural one, for no bird had ever had such wings that they unfurled like sails behind, or a body so lumpy and disproportionate that one could not tell where the head or the feet presided; no bird, either, had ever had such a disgraceful landing. The shadow tumbled to earth like a fallen corpse, a tangle of saggy limbs and fake flesh; there it lay, slime from the Chamber floor glimmering like grease in the torchlight, looking like so much dead meat in a sack.

Harry summoned it back with the anger of repeated failure. Only with the greatest reluctance did the dummy come to his call, slumping before him in a parody of a kneel. Harry gave a little huff of frustration. _"Reparo." _In the blink of an eye, the thing before him turned to something that looked, if you squinted, like a relatively human-shaped figure, standing on it's own two feet with an unnatural stillness and stiffness. It had no eyes, nor any mouth; little divots on each side of the head gave a weak impression of ears. While Harry needed no particular form of dummy for spell practice, the thing he had conjured seemed more creepy than if he had made an effort to make it look like an actual human.

_"Propulso!" _

The dummy flew through the air and fell once more. Harry growled. _Five meters. Five meters every time. _No matter how he tried, no matter how much focus or effort he threw into the spell, it refused to work.

Which, of course, didn't make any _sense._

The book he'd recently checked out -truly, without stealing- from the library had said that the strength of a spell was directly related to the power put into it; that the more power one drew upon, the more powerful the spell would turn out. It was only logical to think so- Harry was rather embarrassed that he'd never thought of it in those terms before- yet when he tried to apply it, nothing happened.

_"Accio! Propulso!" _

A hissing laughter seemed to fill the Chamber as the dummy slid to a stop upon the cold, grey stone, a trail of slime five meters long behind it. Harry could have screamed. A week- a week of practicing, and, if he had increased his mastery of a few more spells, he still had no true results to show in the _strength _of those spells.

Harry grumbled to himself and left the dummy where it lay. A week since he had devoted himself entirely to getting stronger; a week since he'd forced himself out of his desolate, oppressive daze and into something a little more worth his time.

Two weeks, then, since he'd finished brewing his Heritage potion and learned just what truly ran through his veins. Or, perhaps, to be more accurate, _who. _

He hadn't told anyone. He couldn't. During the first week he'd taken to losing himself in misery and self pity and denial. Needless to say though it was, both Ron and Hermione had been absolutely panicked by the change; he had only forced himself awake because they had threatened to haul him to Madam Pomfrey to see what was wrong with him- and there, he had fretted, they would find some odd anomaly in him or something and deduct that he wasn't who he said he was.

Merlin. If it hadn't been for them, something would have probably given him away, and he'd have been sent to Azkaban, or the Ministry would order him to make an Unbreakable Vow to never use his magic, or everyone would hate him and-

To be sure, it hadn't taken Harry any stretch of the imagination to guess how the world would react to this revelation. He knew because he'd reacted that way himself. A son of... such a _thing_ could never amount to anything good, surely. He'd be dark and evil and conniving and _Slytherin_, someone no one could trust or _would_ trust or love.

But then reality had kicked in, and Harry'd forced himself to think somewhat rationally before he did something stupid, like turn himself in. The fact that a son of that thing was sure to be dark and evil and conniving and Slytherin was proved wrong simply by the way he lived. He was as Light as anyone could be. He was not evil or conniving or Slytherin. And he had done the world a lot of good; he'd defeated Voldemort when he was a baby and had given the Wizarding World a breather from his murdering. Just because he was related to some bastard of the highest degree did not mean that he would be a bastard too. Blood was not everything. If he wanted to consider James Potter his father, then that was that and no one could stop him.

That, of course, did not mean that he told anyone. Even Ron and Hermione were kept ignorant of the matter. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell them; of course he did. No, it was something more, an instinct, perhaps, that told him to keep his own counsel, just in case. Telling people his secret invited accidental dropped hints in the wrong ears; it meant that there was the greater chance that someone might find out. And it meant that they'd get caught in his web of lies and then- who knew? They might get hurt.

And he couldn't have that. No; he was taking this to the grave with him.

_Which, _Harry thought, thinking of his progress, with Anchoring his glamours, _is much easier said than done. _He did not particularly want to bother with that kettle of fish, tonight. Anchoring proved to be a fruitless, frustrating endeavor of the sort that he could not master. But what was new? Nothing was going his way, lately.

The snakes on the columns seemed to sneer. _Oh shut up, _they seemed to say. _Get over yourself. _

And, perhaps, it was time he did just that.

_XXXXX_

Harry woke up the following morning feeling as if he hadn't slept a wink. He'd spend the greater portion of the night practicing his spellwork, and the rest he'd given himself -a whole three hours- had not been enough to leave him in fit condition for the day. Day, however, waited for no man, and so he stood and got dressed and reapplied his glamours and brushed his teeth with the leaden limbs of a man yet sleeping. Ron seemed to share his sentiments; with eyes half closed and body swaying as he walked, he looked more like an animated corpse than a boy who'd gotten up at an impossibly early time.

Hermione's expression grew exasperated when she saw them. "Did you two stay up late playing Wizard's chess again?"

They gave a half-hearted mumble of denial that she didn't buy. "Well, it'll be on your heads in Defense," she threatened. "Snape'll have a field day with you."

Even the warning hadn't much effect. The Trio trudged into the Great Hall with all the energy of a Phoenix on it's burning day; that is to say, none at all. Harry had a vague impression of a grey, stormy ceiling before he fell into his customary seat on the bench of the Gryffindor Table. A moment was spent staring at the old, weathered wood, before he realized that there was food on the table.

As he began filling his plate and his mouth, and as his brain began fighting the fog that gripped it tightly, Harry couldn't help but stare at Dumbledore at the head table. From such a distance, he looked as if there were nothing the matter with him. He was powerful and wise; the defeater of Grindelwald, immortalized by the walls of Hogwarts and the students within. Nothing could overcome him.

And yet, it seemed, that something _had. _Something had latched itself to his soul and was sucking the life from him, slowly, certainly.

Yes- he wasn't the only one with problems. He had to stop being so self-centered.

"...don't you think, Harry?"

He blinked. "What was that?"

Hermione glanced at where he had been staring. "Dumbledore'll be alright, Harry," she said confidently. "Trust me."

Harry returned her smile. "I know. What were you saying?" Inwardly, he felt like hexing himself. He'd let down his guard- and what had happened? He'd worried his friends _again._ Merlin was he an idiot.

"We were saying that, whatever Hagrid took from Gringotts, it might have something to do with the curse on the Headmaster's hand," said Hermione, thinking that her comforting had worked and relieved for it.

As Ron piled his plate high with pancakes, he said, "maybe that's something to ask him when you see him during your lessons." He motioned to Dumbledore with a syrup-sticky hand. "Has he talked to you about those yet?"

"Not yet," he replied. "I'm not sure if he'd give me a straight answer, anyway." He stole the last pancake from the serving plate from under Ron's nose and smirked at him. "He didn't give us one when we visited him a week ago."

"That was with us there," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Maybe he'll give you a better answer when you see him next."

An owl interrupted his reply, flinging itself down and gobbling up his pancake. "Hey!" He cried, narrowly avoiding one of it's wings. "Watch it!"

In response, the owl, a dark, tawny thing, looked down its beak at him and hooted angrily before sticking out a leg imperiously. Harry glared at it. "What do you want, you giant flying rat?"

The owl regally ignored him in favor of the bacon on his plate.

"Help yourself," he grumbled as he took the scroll from the owl. The bird flew off immediately, soon lost in the flurry of owls that brought the morning post. Hastily, he tore open the parchment and pulled out the letter within with a feeling of dread. The last letter he'd gotten had been from James and Lily; would this be yet another secret kept from him until he was of a 'proper age'?

_'Dear Lord Black,_

_Salutations. You have been summoned for a routine Wizengamot meeting regarding specific matters that shall be discussed in the circle upon the coming Autumnal Equinox on September the 23. Please attend the session at the time of three o'clock in the afternoon in the courtroom on the tenth floor of the Ministry of Magic. _

_Looking forward to seeing you, _

_Tiberius McLaggen _

_Wizengamot Event Organizer'_

"What is it, Harry? What does it say?"

Hermione peered over his shoulder and gaped.

"It's addressed to 'Lord Black'-"

Ron's head shot up. "Harry, why's such a letter coming to you?"

He flushed. "Um- Well..." Damn. He had almost completely forgotten about the inheritances he'd received over the summer in the face of learning that his family wasn't what he had thought it was... No. That his blood didn't match James'. Lily and James would always be his family. Blood didn't affect that. He wouldn't allow it to.

"I was going to tell you when I was ready," he said, improvising. "But the time never felt right."

Ron stole the letter from Hermione and read it. "You have a seat in the Wizengamot?" He cried, drawing heads along the table. Harry winced.

"Well- yeah..." He took a breath. "I now have two."

Hermione stared at him, brown eyes glittering. "Explain."

Harry told them about how the goblin Griphook had dragged him into the back room and given him a ton of papers to read on what he owned.

"And you haven't read them?" She cried, scandalized. "It's your responsibility as Lord Potter-Black! You definitely need to do it. On your break between periods today."

"Yeah, I know that," he scowled. "And I will!" He defended himself when Hermione looked at him doubtfully. "I will. During break."

But Hermione was no longer listening; instead, she was frowning, deep in thought. "Harry, do you have any idea of how dangerous this will be? With Voldemort's power increasing, his Death Eaters will have begun spreading their influence in politics more then ever. Perhaps it'd be better if you let the Malfoys take over the Black line or something."

"Hand it over? Never!" Harry retorted heatedly, aware of the eyes of unwelcome folk listening in. "Can we talk about this later?"

"Alright," Ron said, glancing about, as if he had noticed as well. Hermione reluctantly subsided into silence with a glare at Seamus, who'd been doing a poor job of pretending he hadn't been eavesdropping. He gave an unmanly _eep! _and hid his face in his porridge. Harry winced, wishing that he could do the same.

What did he know about the Wizengamot? Harry frowned at his juice. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He was going into this with absolutely no idea of what was to come; would they expect him to display exceptional magical skill? Would they want him to make a speech? Merlin. _I can't give up now. I have to go forward. For Sirius. For them. _

_XXXXX_

September twenty-third arrived a million years before Harry was ready for it.

He had done everything he could think of to prepare. He had read the folders that Griphook had given him, which had been a most mind-boggling experience in the first place. To think that both the Black and Potter families had manors- he owned at least three homes! It was impossible!- but that he also owned everything within them, as well as the galleons inside their respective vaults; Harry was half-certain that all of it was a dream. A very stressful one, but a dream still. And then- Merlin- the Wizengamot. How could such a gathering be so complicated, have so much history? Shifting through it all had proved hopeless- he'd only gotten to the mid 1300's before Hermione had run up to the Library to tell him he had to get ready.

He approached the fireplace as if it were a rabid dog, holding the Floo powder in his hand as if it could save him from the flashing steel that curled up the hearth as decoration and hung down to catch him in the neck. The Gryffindor fireplace had never seemed so terrifying, so ominous, or so deadly.

"You can do it, Harry," assured Hermione from behind. "You're positive you don't want us to come along?"

Harry turned and managed to send them a confident smile. From their frowns, it hadn't been quite as convincing as he'd hoped. "I'll be alright! Don't worry about me- worry about Slughorn!" He threw the powder into the flames, which turned a Slytherin green in an instant. "Good luck; I should be back before Transfiguration." Ducking into the fireplace, he shouted, "Ministry of Magic, Tenth Floor!"

In a flurry of ash and fire Harry spun up and out of Hogwarts. He watched multiple different fireplaces pass him by until ash attacked his eyes and mouth. It spun up his nose and down his throat like a deadly poison intent upon the sanctity of his lungs, releasing him only when he stumbled forward, blinded and insensible. His glasses had been a poor defense for the winds that had sprung from his passage; his eyes stung as if he'd walked into a bee's nest.

Merlin, he'd forgotten how much he _hated_ travel by Floo.

"Harry Potter?"

Harry looked up through his ash-stricken glasses to meet the baffled eyes of one Percy Weasley. "What are you doing here, Potter?" He asked, all business. There was no glimmer of recognition in his eyes; he stood a few yards away, distant and cold, like Lucius Malfoy gone red haired and a few inches shorter.

The comparison made his blood run cold. _What has done this to you, Percy? _he wanted to ask. _Who did this? _

Yet, instead, all he said was: "I'm here for the Wizengamot meeting." He paused a moment to brush ash from his glasses. "Why?" Putting his glasses back on, he found himself in a very dark, very cold hallway that tickled memories of his fifth year unpleasantly. Made of stone that looked more carved than placed, as if he were deep in the heart of some great mountain, it glittered strangely reluctantly in the flickering torchlight.

Percy stared at him inscrutably for a few moments and turned on his heel without a word. "Follow me, Potter," he said neutrally. Harry frowned; he'd read in his book that Lords of Wizarding families were supposed to be addressed as 'Lord Black' or 'Lord Malfoy.' Or, in his case, Lord Potter-Black. "You're late; the Wizengamot meeting has already started."

"What?" Harry exclaimed, insult forgotten. "But that's not what my notice said!"

"That's not my problem, Mr. Potter," sniffed Percy. He stopped before a large wooden door that Harry also dimly remembered. Within it, he could hear the soft buzzing of voices. "In here."

A sense of foreboding told him that he did _not _want to enter that room. That he wanted to run back to the fireplace and hide under his bed at Hogwarts. Despite having read the entire torture-device that Griphook had given him, the book _'Masters and Their Responsibilities', _he felt as if he had only the faintest idea of what would be expected of him, as Lord Potter-Black. It was too late for him to turn back, but he felt, deep within his bones, that walking forward would open up a baffling world he might not be able to cope with.

And then his legs moved without his command, and he marched in, forcibly steeling himself at the last moment. He had his wand. He had his wits. He could do it if he kept his head down and tried to stay out of folks' way. He'd escaped Voldemort five times over the past sixteen years; a room full of scruffy old lawmakers couldn't bring him down.

As he walked in, he stared about him with something -fear, trepidation, astonishment- clinging to his throat with cruel fingers of impossible strength. From his own dim recollection of the Wizengamot courtroom, there shouldn't have been so many people. While the floor of the Wizengamot was laid bare, with only the chair of chains rattling threateningly, as if remembering that he had a history there, as if recalling his scent or magic or body; above, situated in a way that could only have been made to intimidate, was the Wizengamot in what must have been in its entirety. Yes- there were dozens of scruffy old men, many of them looking more like animated skeletons than human beings with morals, and old women, too, that seemed to peer down their scraggly, ugly noses at him through tiny tinted glasses that, by the shrewdness of their gazes, they did not truly need. Among them, however, were the young- or, he amended himself, the younger. The youngest of them seemed to be reaching their late middle ages.

And here he came, a boy not even having reached all of seventeen years, to join them in their task of judging the wrongdoers and to help them pass their laws.

"Can we help you?" A stomach twistingly familiar voice asked. Umbridge sat near the front of the assembly, far to the left of Dumbledore, in front-

Harry paused and met the crystal blue of Dumbledore's eyes with shock. The feeling seemed mutual, from the way that the Headmaster was studying him intently, like a most peculiar specimen of animal of the sort he had never seen before. He could have shot himself for his stupidity; he'd forgotten, in everything that had been happening to him, that Dumbledore was the bloody Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

Bloody hell.

"I am here," he began, his voice raspy from its dowsing of ash, "to take my place on the Wizengamot."

Umbridge's fat, toad like smile suddenly bloomed on her face. Harry felt his gut sink to the earth and beyond in response. "Place? On the Wizengamot?" She released an unpleasant peal of laughter. "You must be mistaken, Mr. Potter. We have received no notices of a new Wizengamot member, and, if we had, it would not be you, who so obviously is under aged as of yet." She tittered. "Ahem, perhaps coming back next year...?"

The assembly chuckled. Harry stared at her, tongue tied. No notice? He hadn't known he was supposed to send a notice.

But she was wrong, and Harry had long hated her, so he opened his mouth, despite the very likely possibility that he was making a grand fool of himself. "I," he began, "am of legal age."

Umbridge tittered at him again, opening her great frog maw to reply. Harry overrode her, throwing back his head stubbornly. Merlin. _I will not allow this woman to humiliate me in front of all these people! _"I am of legal age as of my inheritance from one Sirius Black, the late Master of the Black Line. In the contents of his will, he named me sole Heir of all that he owned."

Her smile was not so certain, now, Harry noted victoriously. Inside, his heart was pounding like a drum, his blood rushing through his veins in a very audible sort of sound. Harry couldn't believe the adults couldn't hear it. "And, as you may or may not know, Madame Umbridge, when the Master of the Line falls, it is up to the Heir to take his place. Upon such a transition, the Heir receives legal emancipation rights, no matter the age."

"Perhaps we should request that a copy of this emancipation letter be sent up to us?" Called a new voice from nearby. Harry turned his head to see a tiny woman with the most ancient face he'd ever seen peer down at him from her seat. He remembered her from his OWL examinations; Griselda Marchbanks, was it? "Instead of bickering about who said this and what happened there." She seemed quite the rational woman; he immediately liked her.

Percy Weasley was sent off running for it while Harry stood in the middle of the room, behind the chair of chains, feeling the most awkward he'd ever felt in his life. The Wizengamot was awkwardly silent, the weight of their gazes a slow, building force that threatened to smash him against the stones of the floor.

He could have kissed Marchbanks when she continued talking. Anything to stop the rising discomfort. "Why did you come late, boy?"

"I didn't come late, Madame," he replied, then swiftly backtracked after the lady sent him a withering glare. "What I mean to say is, I came at the time I was told the meeting would start."

She frowned. "Ah. You were not given the customary introduction into the Wizengamot?" At Harry's silence she nodded. "Seems like all we have here, Madame Umbridge, is simply a result of poor communication. We'll wait to see what Mr. Weasley comes up with, however."

On cue, Percy stepped through the door, puffing slightly, yet striving to look regal and collected. "The documents, Madame Marchbanks."

As the elder witch flipped through the papers, Harry's heart leapt into his mouth, pulsing and beating furiously. What if it had all been a scam? A joke on the Boy-Who-Lived? What if- Harry swallowed thickly- Sirius had never really left his fortune to him at all?

"They're official," came Marchbanks' testimony. Harry sagged in relief and suppressed a smirk at Umbridge's expression of distinct disappointment. He'd won against her yet again. "You may take your place, Lord Potter-Black," she continued, motioning him to a seat. "After the meeting, I will give you the rundown myself."

A hiss seemed to spread through the court as Harry made his way to the Wizengamot dais. He glanced about, but could not see from where it came; everyone suddenly seemed to be pointedly ignoring him. Harry frowned. _What did I do? _

"What is the hold up, Lord Potter-Black?" Madame Marchbanks voice came again. Harry suppressed a blush.

"I was wondering... where should I sit?"

A chuckle rose through the company once more; red was slowly moving up his neck, he could feel it. This was not how he had wanted his first Wizengamot meeting to go. "The Black seat is right here," she pointed at a seat directly in front, a few seats away from her, next to an old man with sunken eyes that stared at him, through him, with an old, tired malice that reflected the deteriorating state of his body. "The Potter seat is up there, in the back."

Harry peered, but, in the mass of wizards and witches, could not see where she pointed. Taking the path of least resistance, he sat himself down next to the old man, whose eyes never left him. Rather disconcerted, he tried his best to ignore him and instead watching Dumbledore. Dumbledore, in his turn, was watching Madame Marchbanks; at her nod he stood.

"With that little interruption taken care of," began Dumbledore, "let us continue."

There was a general hum of shuffling and clearing of throats before a man on the other side of the room stood up. "I would like to propose that we continue talking about Legislature the Fourteenth, Amendment two hundred and seventeen," he pronounced clearly. Harry gaped. He'd said that all in one breath. "On the question of whether or not goblins should be allowed to have access to Wizarding files and records."

"All that agree to move to this agenda raise your hand now," Dumbledore instructed. Harry noticed Percy Weasley counting the hands and setting them down onto paper. "Now all in discord raise their hand." A pause. "Accountant, what is the result?"

"Wizengamot in favor of opening the floor on Legislature the Fourteenth, Amendment two hundred and seventeen," Percy replied promptly.

"The floor is open for debate," Dumbledore finished. As if a button had been pushed, several hands went up, scattered across the room. Harry watched Dumbledore pick one at random.

"Dirk Cresswell," said the man as he stood up. "I would like to say that this is an issue that has already been addressed and decided upon. Therefore, we should move along to another issue on the agenda."

The man that had begun the conversation stood up without being called upon. "Gagon Gunthrup," he stated by way of introduction. "We do not need another lecture on the state of the economy in Brussels, Cresswell."

A quiet, unanimous chuckle filled the room. Dumbledore pointed in another direction. "Celestine Gamp. Cresswell has a point. I suggest that we move on to discuss our current state of emergency and our relations with other countries."

The woman, her hair beginning to shed its youthful glory, seemed to be in her fifties. All of the people held a lifetime more experience than he; all of them disregarded him as a child who didn't know his place.

What had he gotten himself into?

"All in favor of a change in topic?" Came Dumbledore's voice, echoing oddly in the oval shaped courtroom. The votes were counted; "Very well. The floor is open for debate."

"Our relations," began a man whom called himself Damocles Ogden, "with Wizarding Moscow have been rather tenuous as of late. There have been reports of mistrust and, in some cases, open hostility between parties."

"I have heard of this as well," added Celestine Gamp. "There has been talk that Moscow has fallen to You-Know-Who." Harry's eyes widened until he felt that they were going to fall out of his head. Voldemort? In _Moscow? _In _Russia_? What was he doing there? Harry paled. Had Voldemort made the war a global issue instead of a national one?

"Oh, please," said another man with a distinct German accent whom had introduced himself as Adelbert Amsel. "Everyone knovs that Russia's chockfull of Dark vizards. Moscow didn't fall- zey vere only playing with us, keeping us occupied as zeir own political parties finished taking over ze government."

"You are of the opinion, then, Amsel, that we should give up on Moscow? That we should let it be a nest for Dark wizards and otherwise?" Retorted Ogden. "We still have a chance, if we send an envoy-"

"Zat vill not vork!" The German wizard said heatedly. "It vould be better for us to take care of zings closer to 'ome-"

"Order!" Came Dumbledore's voice, suddenly loud and piercing. Looking at him now, Harry felt as if he'd never seen him on the bed in the Hospital wing, dying. "Order in the court."

The meeting continued for hours. Harry's ignorance kept him silent more effectively than a _Silencio _could have done. He had read Griphook's book, yes, but it had detailed only what his duties as a Lord to a family was- that he uphold their ideals, that he protect them, that he ensure the family's honor (which was all pretty simple, he figured, as no one was left alive in either the Potter or Black families); yet the book had not touched on any part of a Lord and political life.

And so Harry sat and refused to meet anyone's eyes, feeling as if he'd failed Sirius utterly and completely. Everything that the Wizengamot talked about was over his head; he could barely grasp the gist of it, never mind the implications.

Until the first man had opened his mouth, Harry had thought he'd had a decent idea of what the Wizengamot did. They passed judgment on criminals and talked about Wizarding government. He'd thought, foolishly, that he'd be able to get the hang of it after the first meeting. They had proved him wrong, so wrong that Harry couldn't help but feel a creeping flush of shame assault his cheeks. When he got back to Hogwarts he was making damn sure that he knew _everything _there was to know about the bloody Ministry and how it bloody worked and every single bloody law passed.

It didn't help, Harry frowned, that no one had given him an introduction to the Wizengamot, as, apparently, everyone else had. He knew that he had enemies- but would they be after his blood already?

When the Wizengamot meeting was over, Harry did not move from his seat. He remained still until everyone but Madame Marchbanks and he were the only ones left, then stood and approached. Griselda Marchbanks was an intimidating woman. An Elder of the Wizengamot, she was older than even Dumbledore- had been the one, in fact, to test him for his NEWTs. She was a legend of the highest proportions.

And she was staring him down like he was a peculiar bug of the sort she'd never seen before. Why did everyone seem to be doing that?

"Harry Potter," Madame Marchbanks broke the silence after the meeting had dispersed, "the Boy-Who-Lived, rumored to be 'the Chosen One', now taking over the Black and Potter Lines as Lord and Master."

Harry stared at her, uncertain. _How do I respond to that?_ Thankfully, Madame Marchbanks continued, saving him. "I will not ask you why you would do such a thing, Potter. I have no interest. I will, however, warn you that politics, especially the politics of today, bring out the worst in people. You are entering a world of the sort which your enemies are tremendously well versed in." Her eyes flicked about the Wizengamot balcony.

He gasped. "You mean- you think that some of Voldemort's followers have made it _here?" _He understood Russia- from what he understood, it'd always been a rather Dark place- but Voldemort? In politics? He saw him more as a brutally take over the government in one full swing sort of person instead of a slow government take down.

Madame Marchbanks sent him a withering glare. Harry felt like sinking into the floor. Alright- so it had been a stupid question. Of course Voldemort had people in the Wizengamot. Recruitment and all that. "Mr. Potter. Perhaps you are not fully aware of the job you are undertaking. The Wizengamot, as the highest political party in the Ministry of Magic, inevitably experiences the influence of witches and wizards across the world. While Voldemort may hold sway over some members of this court, others follow different paths."

Harry stared at her, tongue tied. Influences... outside of Britain?

The Wizengamot Elder did not seem to notice his panic. "On with business, Mr. Potter. For matters unknown and insignificant, you were not given the customary introduction into the Wizengamot. Usually, you would be introduced by the Wizengamot Event Organizer, Tiberius McLaggen. However, I find that such matters are best taken care of by oneself, to ensure that they are done correctly. The Wizengamot," she said, voice strong and certain despite her years, "is a council that has been passing laws, convicting criminals, and advising the minister for over one thousand years. We, the members, are the true backbone of this government. We uphold the ideals of Wizarding society and make educated decisions based on those ideals."

"What are they?" Harry asked.

"Justice and equality," she nodded, as if to herself. "Justice and equality; justice to fuel one's decisions and equality to tender them. While many see them only as guidelines, to be followed when it benefits them, I'm sure that you, as someone that Dumbledore so obviously approves of, will do the right thing. Yet I digress. As a new member of the Wizengamot, you will be sent a book on Wizengamot history and protocol as well as a self updating guide to the laws and their amendments of Wizarding Britain."

"Thank you," Harry said, struggling to retain everything he'd heard. "Thank you." Relief flowed through him like spring water. Merlin. No more frantic perusing of library shelves in a desperate search for relevant information.

"Do not thank me, Potter. I am simply doing what any decent witch would; give you some tools with which, perhaps, you may survive. Oh, and Potter?"

"Yes?"

"Next time, clean the ash off your robes."

Harry choked and glanced down at his clothes. Merlin, he had forgotten that he'd arrived by the Floo; had forgotten what a mess he was, in the face of Umbridge's interrogation.

Harry swallowed his burning cheeks and watched her leave, feeling very small and insignificant. He had been rash in his acceptance of Sirius' will. Not, of course, that he would have ever allowed Lucius bloody Malfoy to gather up the Black family's fortune and allow Voldemort to gobble up more political power. It would have been nice to know what had been going on in that courtroom, though.

When Harry left Courtroom Ten, Griselda Marchbanks was already gone.

But that did not mean that the hallway was empty.

"Harry Potter."

Harry turned towards the voice, meeting eyes the color of water. "Can I help you?" He asked, warily, Madame Marchbanks' warnings fresh in his ear.

"My name is Angus Clearwater, Lord of the Clearwater Line."

Harry stared at him blankly, uncertain of how to react. He obviously expected him to be impressed, yet... weren't they of the same level? Harry could even be called his superior, since he had two family titles instead of one. "It's good to meet you," he offered. "I am Harry Potter, Lord of the Black and Potter Lines." He paused. "But you obviously already knew that, didn't you, Mr. Clearwater?"

The man in front of him suddenly changed. It wasn't an obvious change, no, but more of a sudden shift of his body, or his face, or simply the air around him. Somehow, Harry could tell that he'd inadvertently affronted him.

"Of course." Clearwater's lips barely moved. "If you are prudent, Mr. Potter, you will be careful with whom you insult." He turned away, as if to leave. "And that is _Lord_ Clearwater to you, Mr. Potter."

Harry watched him go, confused, perplexed, and not a little frustrated.

_XXXXX_

Angus Clearwater had always considered himself to be a decent man. The Lord of a longstanding Light family, he was an upright and dignified man whom always did what was best for his Line.

And so it angered him when little upstart Lords thought that they knew everything. It angered him when little boys thought that they could order their elders about. The way that he'd talked back to Madam Umbridge- such disrespect! And how Marchbanks had had to give him the rundown, taking time from her busy schedule- Merlin. Potter was one of the worst cases he'd ever seen. It was to be expected, of course. He was the Boy-Who-Lived, after all. The Chosen One. The masses loved him. Dumbledore had taken a special interest in him since he had been born, guided him through life as if he was some sort of shepherd, to sit on a rock and toot and fiddle to his little Potter-lamb. Even that Dark Lord was obsessed with the boy, if, admittedly, in a different fashion.

He had captured the whole of Wizarding Britain, even its most dignified and powerful wizards and witches. Single-handedly.

But there were always those that did not fit in. There were always the misfits and the minority groups that disagreed with the majority. Potter did not hold the entirety of Britain in his grasp. It was up to the elders to instruct the young, to teach them right from wrong. Perhaps it was time for the Clearwater family to completely ensure their complete dominance over the Ministry. Yes. It was time. Ignorant, over-confident boys were pitifully easy to manipulate; if Potter could kill Lord Voldemort, the way would be clear to the top. The Malfoy family would be ruined completely, that bastard Lucius permanently put down.

And if he could not...

Well. There would be one less fool in the world, wouldn't there?

He smiled. Dumbledore should have known better than to allow his little project to dabble in politics. He was going to be eaten up and spat out before he knew what had happened.

Angus would make sure of it.

_XXXXX_

The next few days were spent holed up in the library, reading the books that Madame Marchbanks had given him.

While Hermione applauded his change in priorities, Ron found it more boring than anything. Without a chess partner, he took to bothering Hermione who, in her turn, didn't mind as much as she might have a few months past. Harry, however, was oblivious to the changing dynamics in the Trio and instead drowned in information.

There were at least seventy amendments to every one law. Usually more. And all of them were restrictions. There would be the law, and then there would be the amendments to the law that continued on forever, narrowing down to the particulars. Nothing was left to the imagination. Everything was precise, literal, and utterly, completely dry. And boring.

So boring. Harry had never read something so boring in his entire life. And he'd read _A History of Magic: Edition III_.

_How does Hermione do it? _he wondered as the words blurred on the page. _How does she sit- for hours!- and read a bloody book and find it interesting?_ Merlin. He threw the book down and instead stared about him, at the rows upon rows of books and dust and mildew and the musty smell that clung to old parchment like mold to bread. If he was honest with himself, he didn't necessarily like the library. It was not his favorite place to be. At all.

But the books wouldn't read themselves, would they? Harry sighed and stood, stretching his legs, muscles tense and reluctant. _How long have I been here? _he wondered as he paced. _How long have I been here, sitting on my ass, reading about some stuffy, stupid, prejudiced laws written by old men! _

And they _were_ prejudiced. There was no doubt about that. Harry had never understood why it was that Remus had never had good clothes, or why it was that he rarely had a job and always looked tired and scruffy and ill fed; but now, now he knew.

It was because it was against the law to hire a werewolf.

It was because it was against the law to allow a werewolf into a public store without guards.

It was because it was against the law to be with a werewolf in the same room, alone.

Harry's teeth clenched tight at the thought. Because of something he couldn't control, Remus was ostracized; because he developed fur and teeth during the reign of the full moon, he could not get a job or shop or hold a private conversation with someone. Merlin. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair!

"Harry?"

He spun at the voice, foreign in a throat clogged by dust that glittered in the library air. The boy in front of him was tall, taller than himself, with dusty brown hair and a rather plump face that gave him the impression that he was looking at someone much younger than he actually was. "Neville!"

Neville grinned. "Merlin, Harry, what are you doing all cloistered up in here?" He glanced at the book he'd been reading. "'_Complete Edition of Wizarding Britain Laws'_?"

Harry groaned. "Don't ask," he replied, slumping back into his seat by the table. "It's a long story. So why are you here?"

Neville fished about in the pockets of his school robes in response, lifting a scrap of paper into the air as if in celebration. "Headmaster Dumbledore approached me, actually," he said. "Told me to give you this, and that you'd be in one of the corners of the library. And here you are, and here I am."

Interested, he stole the note from him and unfolded it. Within were only a few lines of script, barely anything at all; '_If you would be so kind as to report to my office this Saturday night, as, I believe, it would be prudent of us both to meet, I would be most delighted.' _

_Probably about those lessons, right? _"Did he say anything else?" Harry asked absently.

"No, nothing at all." Neville turned, as if to go. "I've really got to finish that Transfiguration essay, so..."

When Harry finally lifted his head out of his thoughts enough to say goodbye, Neville was gone.

_XXXXX_

Saturday night saw him standing resolutely in front of Dumbledore's office, note crumpled in his fist. This was the day the lessons would truly start- the Headmaster's note had said so. Harry sidled up the stairs, his heart a great, thundering herd of horses pounding through his chest that rattled the walls as it passed.

It couldn't have been a worst time, Harry decided as he opened the door at the Headmaster's call of welcome. He only had two more days to figure out what he was doing wrong with his Anchoring, and then Snape would begin throwing curses and jinxes at him that'd need to be dispelled by a _Finite Incantatem _and then he'd be screwed- no, beyond screwed. There would be no end to the Slytherins' laughter. Or the betrayal in his friends' eyes.

"Hello, Harry. Lemon drop?" He took one, popping it into his mouth by habit. "I trust you've had a nice week? How are classes?"

"They're fine," Harry responded. "The Wizengamot meeting, on the other hand..."

Dumbledore smiled at him, blue eyes twinkling. "Indeed, Harry. Everywhere you go you seem to make a distinct impression in people's minds."

Harry flushed. "I hadn't meant to. I just kind of- forgot that I was covered in ash and soot. And I didn't have the slightest idea of what to do."

"Yes, I had- heard of that, from Griselda. A most troubling event- Harry," his voice suddenly changed; in one sinuous moment Dumbledore went from happily cheerful to serious in a way he'd only seen him be last year, after Sirius had died. "Are you sure that you want to take over as Master of the Black Line in Sirius' place?"

He blinked. "Yes," he replied, confused that Dumbledore was even asking him this. "If I did not, the Black fortune would be handed over to Lucius Malfoy, free for Voldemort to exploit."

A weary sigh issued from the depths of the Headmaster, coming from so deep that Harry wondered that he had so much space inside him. "It saddens me, Harry, that you would accept the responsibility simply to keep it out of his hands."

Harry frowned. Out of all the responses he had imagined, this had not been one of them. "What- what do you mean, sir?"

"You are sixteen. I would not have you worry about Dark Lords or politics as you do. But," another sigh. "It is out of my hands, perhaps. I will, however, be there to help you when the need arises. Politics are much more intricate than anything that you will have experienced. However, they are easy to understand if you have a good grasp of what drives a man's hand in a dire situation. Will it be to protect his love? His family? His honor and dignity? Or, perhaps, for himself?" He nodded, as if to himself. "Yes, Harry, politics are not so difficult to understand once you begin to understand the human mind."

Nearby, Fawkes chirped on his perch approvingly. He looked as if he were just nearing his Burning; his cloak of fire and flame was riddled with an ill looking brown, as if old age were a disease that was slowly sinking him into the very heart of the River Styx.

"I...see," Harry said, uncertainly. He most definitely did not understand. What was it about politics that everyone seemed to think he was so unprepared for? What was he missing in this?

Dumbledore looked at him as if he could understand everything that he was feeling. Harry felt like squirming uncomfortably. _At least one of us knows what's going on, _he thought ruefully.

"You are, most likely, wondering why I brought you here."

"For our lessons, right, sir?"

He nodded and stood -slowly, almost stiffly- and waved him over to a nearby cabinet. "It will be, I think, most like a history lesson." He motioned to a softly glowing bowl nearby Harry recognized as a Pensieve. "After you, Harry."

Taking a deep breath, Harry leaned forward, allowing himself to slide through into the bowl, an impossible act made possible by magic. For a moment he was completely suspended, neither a part of the present nor of the past, neither existing nor entirely nothing; and then his feet landed once more upon the ground, and he was struggling to accustom his eyes to the gleaming sunlight.

He was in a rural, country road he'd often seen in Vernon's movies; usually, this was the place the old cowboy met their nemesis, fought heroically, injured himself, and defeated the foe. To the side of the road was an old wooden fence, the paint peeling off to the point where the original color was anyone's guess; that, Harry predicted, was where the bad guy would pop out, looking scraggly and bedraggled from his months of being on the run from the hard working, yet ineffective, police. He'd, of course, set up his headquarters in the old farmhouse visible on a hill not far away, surrounded by sun browned pastureland that had, at one time, probably housed a farmer's wealth and pride. The previous owners, however, had long abandoned their property, and the entire establishment was falling into disrepair. While the main character was busy fighting, three or four bandits would come out of the woods on the other side of the lane, dusty and dirty, and attempt to jump the hero. The hero would get hit a few times, then suddenly defeat all of them in a sudden twist of events, because the damned idiots fought him one at a time.

Beside him, Dumbledore appeared, and Harry blinked, forcing himself out of his thoughts. From down the road, a pudgy, short man with ridiculously thick glasses that Harry had not noticed stood inspecting a signpost. His clothes, those that a wizard wore when they didn't do their proper research, left Harry wanting to hit him on the head for his foolishness. If he'd known anything, he definitely wouldn't wear such an extraordinarily colored bathrobe with bizarre pink overalls to match.

"That, my dear boy, is Bob Ogden."

Harry frowned, looking up at Dumbledore. "Who is he?"

"He was once employed by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Dumbledore took off his spectacles and shined them. "He died a couple years ago, but not before I found him and persuaded him to share his memories with me."

Ahead of them, Harry watched this 'Bob Ogden' begin scurrying down the road. The Headmaster followed at a similar pace, acting, if not looking, more young and sprightly then Harry'd ever seen him. As they passed the signpost, Harry looked at it curiously. Looking as old as Dumbledore, the words were barely legible. Why didn't the Muggles come and refurbish it?

Somehow, he made out the words 'Great Hangleton' with what used to be an arrow pointing to the opposite way Ogden was hurrying, with an unintelligible sign next to it, washed and destroyed by countless years of abuse. Beneath it was written 'Little' and a mass of squiggles made incomprehensible with age.

Shrugging, Harry hurried to catch up with Dumbledore. He wished that the memory would get to the point soon; it seemed that they were doing all sorts of walking, and no sorts of learning. Not that he minded that sort of lesson.

Ogden led them onto a side path, which reluctantly unfolded itself from the trees, meandering its way gracelessly through the trunks in a zigzagging pattern. The light eventually surrendered to the eternal twilight so often found beneath the trees, softly, so quietly that Harry hadn't realized the change until he was staring at the fathomless shadows, knowing something was there, and yet, truly, there couldn't possibly be...

They walked forward a few more steps, and what Harry was seeing made sense.

It had probably been a house at one time. Most likely, even, one that would've sold for a pretty penny had the owners not abandoned it as they had, leaving it to deteriorate past the point of possible inhabitation. Trees clung too closely to the walls of the building, sometimes leaning haphazardly close, preparing to fall and crush the house to bits. Moss clung like a lover to anything upright and taller then three feet, seeking, questing tendrils of the stuff liberally coating the world, as if struggling to choke the earth of life.

It was as if someone had cast a spell for the forest to reclaim the property for its own; nothing remained untouched.

And then Ogden moved forward, curiously, cautiously, his sneaker-clad feet making barely a sound on the moss-carpeted ground, his wand out- and a gigantic _something_ dropped from the tree, landing on it's feet and brandishing a small, glittering red-tinted knife in one hand and a stick -Harry realized it was a wand- in another.

Ogden stumbled backwards, almost tripping over his little bathrobe in the process. Harry couldn't blame him; his heart was pounding in his chest and he couldn't deny that he'd jumped a little, himself. Not that he'd tell anyone else that. The thing had come from nowhere.

_'You're not welcome,' _the thing said, dirty lips pulling back to reveal old, broken teeth that had been cursed black with age. It's body was wrapped in rags, it's hair caked in innumerable years of dirt. It was pitiable. It was disgusting. Harry suppressed a shudder. Who, exactly, was this? Did he live in that dilapidated old house? It certainly fit him, Harry admitted. Like dirt and decay fit together.

"I- good morning, I'm from the Ministry of Magic." Ogden replied. Harry stared at the man. That was certainly an odd response.

_'You're not welcome.' _

"Ah, er, I'm afraid I don't understand you."

Harry let his eyes stray from the two wizards, and made out something odd stuck on the door. Was that-?

"You understand him, I'm sure, Harry?" Glancing up at the Headmaster, he nodded.

"He's making himself pretty obvious," Harry replied. "Why-"

His eyes roved over the thing on the door again. Yes, it was most definitely a snake.

"Oh. He's speaking Parseltongue."

Harry watched blankly as the thing jinxed Ogden with a loud bang. Parseltongue was a rare ability passed down through generation to generation in families; only one such family had had the ability in Wizarding Britain, and that had been Slytherin.

Tom Riddle's lineage.

He looked at the thing with a dawning sense of horror.

It couldn't be.

"Morfin!"

The loud voice shocked the thing -Morfin, apparently- and the Ministry worker. Everyone's main focus turned on the newcomer, an elderly old man that Harry knew that he'd seen before. His body was all odd proportions and too-thin limbs. The entire family hadn't been eating well, apparently; not that it was surprising, with how their home looked. The elder gestured with his abnormally long arms, his shoulders too wide, his body too short, his face squashed in like one of his aunt's neighbors' cats. He could have been Slytherin's twin, without the bashed in face.

"Ministry, is it?" His voice, oddly, did not squawk and screech like the monkey he so closely resembled. Instead, he sounded almost... normal. A voice one would hear on the side of the street, talking politics over a mug of coffee.

"Yes!" Ogden had clambered to his feet, blood spouting from his nose. Morfin apparently broke it, and was showing his approval by cackling wildly. "Are you Mr. Gaunt?"

Harry frowned. Why were they going by the name 'Gaunt' if they were Slytherins?

"Right. Got you in the face, did he?"

"Yes, he did!" Ogden snapped. He was evidently fed up with the Gaunts; he looked ready to hex them into oblivion. Apparently getting his nose broke hadn't been in the job description.

"Should've announced yourself, huh, Mr. Ministry worker?" Gaunt snorted. "All you fools prancing about, thinking you can do whatever you want. This is private property, I'll have you know! Can't just waltz in here and expect my son to not defend himself."

Ogden glared, casting a spell to fix his nose with a small pop. "Defend himself from what?" He asked suspiciously.

"Don't know everything, do ya?" The old man taunted. "We have to keep the fools away. The busybodies, the idiots, the unpure bastards- and, not to mention, the filthy Muggles."

_The hatred seems to run in the family_, Harry grimaced, then grimaced again. _But it shall end with me. _

Mr. Ogden was shown into the house by Mr. Gaunt, the snake on the door swinging pathetically. Harry and Dumbledore followed, invisible shadows from the future. The inside of the house was worse then the outside. At least the moss and the trees had hid the tasteless, stone-grey color of the house, which matched perfectly with the occupants' clothing, until they looked like parts of the wall moving about on their own whim. A smoky fire in the fireplace contaminated the air inside the house; the chimney must have been clogged.

From the coughing of the third thing in the corner by a blackened and greasy stove, it had been clogged for quite some time. The third thing was a trifle bit cleaner then the rest, it's hair a bit longer- it was female, and doing something by a filthy sink tarnished by years of improper cleaning. Her hair, a worse mess than Morfin's, was a rat's nest that hadn't ever seen a comb or a brush. Who were these people, in relation to himself?

Harry started as he heard soft singing in an odd, peculiar hiss. Morfin was on the ground, playing with a little garden snake, his bugging eyes going every direction in a rather worrisome way. Disgust and contempt rushed through his veins. He couldn't possibly be related to these... things. They were insane, had no class, and lacked interest in anyone but themselves.

_"Hissy hissy, little snakey, _

_Slither on the floor, _

_You be good to Morfin_

_Or he'll nail you to the door.' _

Morfin's song faded to the background as the two men began to talk. "I am here on a severe breach of Wizarding law. It is reported that your son, Morfin, hexed a Muggle down in the village yesterday around the evening hour; and that he did it in the view of other Muggles."

Gaunt slammed himself down in a gritty chair that had long been falling apart for years. Old, discolored cloth hung like a child's discarded toy upon the armrests, as if they had struggled to reach safety in time and only managed to seal their fate. Harry fancied that the chair was a fair physical representation of the mental status of the people inside.

"Oh? And what are ye going to do 'bout it?"

"Your son has been called to a hearing this Sunday-"

"A _hearing_?" Gaunt laughed raucously. "He's been _called_ to one?" His grim mirth melted to righteous anger in a matter of seconds. "You and your fancy little Ministry, employing halfbloods and mudbloods, prancing about and ordering us Purebloods where to be and how to act- no! It isn't done!" Just as he'd thrown himself into the chair, he somehow slammed himself out of it, looking for all the world like an overgrown, petulant monkey child. Harry would've laughed had it not been for the insane gleam in his eyes. He'd seen that before, too. "You see this? _You see this!"_ Gaunt was waving his middle finger at the man, showing him something large and black and rather ugly. A ring, or an odd abscess on his knuckle. "This has been in my family for generations! Up since Salazar Slytherin! Do you see it? The Peverell coat of arms?" He glanced at Ogden as if he had the brains of an ant. The expression was cool, collected; a Pureblood looking at one with an inferior blood purity than himself.

He then threw himself into a sudden rage once more, loping over to where the third thing huddled by the wall, debasing herself worse than a house elf. "This!" Gaunt was yelling erratically, as if he'd forgotten how to form a sentence in his sudden overpowering urge to show this Ogden priceless heirlooms. "This _is_ Salazar Slytherin's! Used to wear it around his neck, he did!" The girl, dragged over to the Ministry worker by the chain at her neck, gasped and gagged for air. Harry glanced at her face, repulsed. Years of inbreeding and Dark magic had tortured the Slytherin line into nothing but groveling maggots, whom had only their heritage to keep them going. How long would it be until Gaunt forced Merope to lay with her own brother?

That might explain some of Voldemort's insanity.

The thing about her necklace was rather pretty, however. Carved from a beautiful black stone, engraved with gold, it pulsed with endless charms placed upon it by previous owners. The ring hadn't been anything to look at, but the locket contradicted it in every sense of the word, as if to shame it into inferiority. "Pure! Pure all the way down, all of our ancestors, _never once_ mixing with Muggle blood! Never!" Harry noticed with a grimace that the old man had effectively sprayed Ogden with saliva. He was related to these people? Impossible.

But he'd seen the insane gleam in their eyes, the Parseltongue, the Slytherin artifacts... It fit Voldemort. It did not fit himself.

And yet... he had seen himself in the mirror, without the glamours. Memories from his second year told him that the Ancestry Potion hadn't lied.

"Yes, yes, I see it! Mr. Gaunt, your daughter!" Gaunt let the girl go, his hand slipping from the chain reluctantly. She fell to the ground in a graceless heap before scurrying backwards, stopping only when she was pressed against the wall once more.

Harry's heart went out to her. The family was dying, wilting from the inside, because of their unwillingness to part with their heritage. She was going to be the first one to die; and for what? Pureblood beliefs?

Harry couldn't fathom it.

Ogden wiped the elder's spittle from his face disdainfully. "I am afraid, Mr. Gaunt, that your own ancestors -and mine- are irrelevant in this sort of atmosphere." He took a deep breath, as if gathering himself for leaping off a cliff without any precautions. "I am here to give Mr. Morfin his Ministry hearing summoning, and then I shall be off your hands."

Morfin suddenly revealed that he hadn't been paying the least amount of attention. He hissed to his father, _"I got him good, father- they're just jealous I got him first-" _

_"Shut up, boy!" _Harry glanced in surprise at the elder. He seemed more stressed then he let on.

"So what if he's summoned to this meeting of yours? Your lot have most likely wiped his memory and fixed his face, why should it matter?"

"That isn't the point!" Ogden shouted. "He attacked a defenseless Muggle-"

"Ah, I see. They sent us a bloody _Muggle-lover._" He spat at Ogden's feet. "Get out of here. You're not welcome."

Before anything else could be said, the atmosphere turned tense and expectant. The jingling of bells and clopping of horses sang through the room, a harmony for peace, as if mocking them all for being so foolish, for fighting and arguing. The family of Gaunts froze, Morfin giggling softly to his snake, as if knowing how this would play out.

"My god! What a disgrace! Can't your father have this place torn out?" It was a woman's voice, high and lilting and oddly beautiful. Apparently, the road passed close to the cottage; that, or they were a couple of folk deciding to take a walk. Harry severely doubted that, however.

"The land isn't owned by us," a young man's voice, heavy with regret. "It's owned by some old man named Gaunt, who lives with his children there- extremely impoverished, the rudest people you'll ever meet." He gave a small laugh. "The son's quite insane- you should hear some of the stories they tell in the village." From the way the sounds of the horses were growing louder by the second, the two were getting closer; Morfin made to stand up from his place on the ground, his snake forgotten as it slithered frantically away into one of the cracks in the wall and disappeared.

_"Sit down," _Gaunt hissed, his eyes holding a dangerous promise if he didn't do as he told him to. _"We don't need more trouble from the mudbloods-" _

_"He's the one, father," _Morfin hissed, looking slyly at his sister as he said it. Merope, Harry noticed, had gone pale with fear, her lips mindlessly forming the word _No, no, no, no, _repeatedly, as if it were some secret, sacred mantra. A very bad feeling began in his stomach. _"She likes looking at that Muggle- hides in the garden whenever he passes by, staring through the hedge, aren't you, Merope-" _The girl in question was shaking her head ferociously, as if to bat away some obnoxious fly that wouldn't leave her alone. _"Always hanging out the window, aren't you, when he goes by?" _

Voldemort. Half blood. Memories of his second year assaulted him viciously. "_Surely you didn't think I was going to keep my__filthy Muggle father's name? No, I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew that wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I became the greatest sorcerer in the world!_"

The expression on the elder Gaunt would have sent a lesser man than he into a fit of shivering. Another thing Voldemort had apparently inherited from his family, then- being able to intimidate someone with a look. _"Hanging out the window to look at a Muggle?" _His voice had gone deathly quiet; it was a dangerous whisper, one that would surely promise the death of someone nearby if they didn't find somewhere else to be fast. _"My daughter- pureblooded descendent of Salazar Slytherin, the greatest wizard ever born- lusting after a foolish, dirt-veined Muggle?" _

_"But I got him, father!" _Morfin crowed, his ugly face twisted into some semblance of scorn. _"Got him as he passed by-" _

_"You fool! You filthy blood traitor! You ignorant, disgusting little Squib!" _Gaunt threw himself once more at Merope, his hands twisting about her neck, his fury lending him impossible strength. Harry winced, waiting for the fateful crack that would signify the girl's death, her bones broken by those powerful monkey hands and arms.

Ogden, whom had been completely lost in the sea of sibilant hisses and odd, indistinguishable whispering, reacted. _"Relashio!" _He cried, throwing the old man away from his daughter. Merope crumpled to the floor, gasping and struggling to breath, her neck purple and blue from his hands.

"How dare you interfere?" Gaunt screamed at him, drawing his wand form somewhere in the rags he wore. Morfin came hissing up beside him, smiling, grinning, leering- Harry'd seen that expression before, too. On Bellatrix Lestrange. _"Let us kill him, father. Let us teach him a lesson he shant ever forget." _

Ogden fled, his wonderful bathrobe suffering from the brunt of the Gaunts' attack. Dumbledore tapped Harry on the shoulder -for a moment, he'd completely forgotten the man was there- and pulled him out of the Pensieve with a "I think that is enough, Harry."

Harry blinked as they returned to the present, feeling as if he'd spent a year and a half in the Pensieve, watching his ancestors yell and fight and scrabble. Why had the Headmaster shown him such a memory? What did it prove? What was he trying to teach?

Was he trying to tell him something?

He joined the Headmaster at his desk, and for a moment he simply watched his instruments puff and twirl, most of them fixed from his temper tantrum the last year, when Sirius had been killed by Bellatrix Lestrange. Merlin. _Merlin. _

Was he doomed to be like that?

"What happened to the girl? Merope?" he finally asked, as the silence suddenly took a turn for the awkward. "She lived, right?"

Dumbledore peered over his spectacles at him, as if judging if he were worthy of the answer. "She survived. Fifteen minutes after being thrown out of the Gaunt house, Ogden returned with a full array of Aurors and saved her. Morfin, whom had had a rather long history of harming Muggles, was sentenced to three years in Azkaban; Marvolo only had three months."

"What happened after they left?" Harry asked, forcing himself to ask one question at a time. "She didn't seem the type to be able to survive on her own without someone else there."

"Ah, but she didn't, Harry," Dumbledore smiled at him, silent praise for asking such a question. "Soon after her father and brother were taken away, she tricked Tom Riddle Senior into taking a love potion." Harry gasped at the name. He had been right.

"That means-"

"Yes. The man on the horse was Voldemort's father."

Harry remained silent, his mind whirring, struggling to fight against the realizations exploding about in his head. If Tom Riddle Senior was Voldemort's father, that essentially made him Harry's grandfather; Merope, then, the broken, cowering slip of a girl, was his grandmother- Morfin, the insane, Muggle-hating wizard, was his great uncle; and Marvolo Gaunt, the stooped, silver haired man whom had turned on his daughter for loving a Muggle, was his great-great grandfather.

"What-" Harry licked his lips, knowing his face was too pale, his eyes too frantic, his breathing too rapid for Dumbledore not to notice, "Do any of them yet live?"

"A couple months after Merope left town with the squire's son, her father Marvolo returned, and, instead, of a piping hot meal as a greeting, he found an inch thick layer of dust and an old letter explaining the things she'd done. He did not live long, after that; at the very least, he was not there when Morfin returned home."

"Morfin and Merope lived?" He wasn't sure how to react. He'd thought he'd been an orphan only a month ago; now, not only did he have a father, there was the possibility that he had a grandmother and a great uncle.

Why were they all so damned insane though?

"Merope, I believe, died during childbirth." Dumbledore paused to take a Lemon Drop from the bowl on his desk. "Tom Riddle Senior had abandoned her a few weeks into her pregnancy, returning to the town to tell a tale of deception and lies. Voldemort grew up in an orphanage in Ottery St. Catchpole."

"Why did Tom Riddle Senior abandon her?" He asked. No grandmother then. "She was with child."

"I believe that she stop administering him the love potion -or any other method she used to control him- when she was pregnant. He left her without a second thought and never looked into the son he left behind."

Silence reigned in the Headmaster's office. '_You could tell him,' _a part of him was whispering, cajolingly, slyly. _'Tell him, unburden yourself. Let him deal with it. Deal with Voldemort, if he learns. The deception, the lies; they wouldn't be necessary.' _Harry momentarily closed his eyes, feeling torn. He wouldn't accept him, the other side of his mind said. He'd only throw him away, because he was poisoned and corrupted by the blood that rushed through his veins with every pump of his heart-

Harry stopped the thoughts before he could fall into the hole he fell victim to too often as of late. "What happened to Morfin?"

Dumbledore peered at him with his piercing blue eyes, his gaze searching. "Morfin's fate, my boy, is another tale for another day."

He possibly had a grand uncle.

Hearing the dismissal, he stood up, then hesitated. "Headmaster?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"Will learning of Voldemort's past help me?" The sudden question made the old Headmaster look at him closely. Harry struggled to keep his face calm.

"Absolutely, Harry," said the Headmaster, his blue eyes twinkling. He hadn't minded, evidently. "I consider it to be vital for when you wish to complete the prophecy."

Harry gazed at him, rather confused, but relieved that, on the surface, at least, the lessons wouldn't be regarding his inheritance on purpose.

_XXXXX_

The next day found Harry browsing the stores of Hogsmeade with Ron and Hermione at his side. He stumbled beside them, tired and rather exhausted. After spending the night reading through the books that Madame Marchbanks had given to him, all he wanted to do was to cuddle up in his bed. His brain had long given up on him; he was sure it had abandoned him somewhere early in the morning, creeping out his ears like slowly congealing blood gone rancid. Sleep was the only sane option left. But then people would ask why he was sleepy and then he'd have to lie, which always made him feel bad, no matter how many secrets he kept or how necessary it was. So he forced himself to look alive and awake with as much effort as he could dredge up.

The air was unseasonably cold for late September, leaving the roads alone and virtually untouched in their quiet vigil of the town and the shops unusually warm and stuffy. The cashiers were rolling in the galleons and looked all the more tired for it; they mumbled and grumbled when the customers attempted to purchase their things. Or, perhaps, Harry thought critically, watching the people file past, it wasn't a matter of weariness, but a question of the Dementors' influence.

They had been haunting the edges of civilization since the true awakening of Lord Voldemort a few months previous, sucking the joy from the lives of millions of Britain and a soul here and there from the Muggle world. Even here, so close to Hogwarts and Dumbledore, Voldemort's touch could be seen.

Harry shuddered.

_Your father's touch- _

He suppressed the urge to vomit. "Harry?" Hermione glanced at him with concern. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," he said, trying to come up with a good excuse. "Was just thinking about the Dementors." It wasn't an exact lie. Simply... not the entire truth. His conscience gave in reluctantly. "Are you guys about finished up here? I'd like to head on over to the Three Broomsticks for some butterbeer."

"I'm done!" Came Ron's voice, muffled somewhat by the Honeydukes chocolate stuffed into his mouth. "Ready when you are."

As they made their way by the Hogs Head, the door was thrown open with a loud bang. _"Don't ever let me see you here again!" _The old barkeeper was screeching, throwing out an old drunk with his wand. He rammed straight into Ron, whom shrieked like a little girl and leapt away from him as if diseased. The barkeep glared at them each individually, eyes dark and gloomy beneath bushy eyebrows. When he was content that none of them would try to contradict him, the barkeeper righted himself around and stumbled back into his tavern. "Grouch," muttered Ron moodily, wiping his pants off as if the drunk's grease was contagious. Feeling pity for the man, Harry offered his hand. "Here, let me help you up."

The drunk froze when he heard his voice, and Harry glanced down at him, confused, when he saw the gigantic bag the man had. It was filled to the brim with priceless silver, silver that had a familiar look to it. Why would the man have such a treasure, out here?

"Mundungus?" Hermione suddenly asked. "Is that you?"

"Why- Why hello there, Hermione," he said, shifting backwards with his sack, as if to escape. "It-Its very good to see you, but, as you see, I'm on some errands fo-for Dumbledore, so..."

The crest on the silver was illuminated by the weak sunlight when the man moved. Harry's hand shot out and gripped him tightly, ignoring the nauseating feeling of grease on his skin. "Why, hello there, Mundungus," he said pleasantly, hiding the sudden, burning anger flooding his system. That he'd _dare _to..."What do you have there?"

"Just some v-valuables I p-picked up recently."

Harry's eyebrow raised. "I see. Would you care to explain just why, exactly, these valuables have the Black crest on them?"

Mundungus' mouth opened and closed like a great, gaping fish. "What? Harry, are you serious?" Hermione asked, aghast.

Swallowing his first reaction, he nodded. "I haven't changed the wards on Grimmauld Place yet. I suppose that I will, now that I realize I'm being taken advantage of." He made a swipe for the bag. "Give that to me! What did you do, go to Sirius' house the night he died and decided 'oh, hey, look, what an interesting opportunity!'?" His voice was rising in volume, but he couldn't help it. He hadn't been this angry since-

Since Sirius had died.

Mundungus gave a terrified glance at his face, as if seeing something terrible there, and, before Harry could grab him, Disapparated with his bag on the spot.

"That-" Harry forced himself to shut his mouth, to control himself. Screaming wouldn't help anyone. It'd only hurt his throat and their ears.

And wasn't he Lord Black, now? He had a responsibility to take care of Sirius' things. He had a responsibility to the entire family, died out though it was.

It was up to him to mete out justice.

Hermione looked at him in concern. "If you talk to the Headmaster about it, he can probably help."

Ron nodded in agreement. "Yeah, mate. He'll know how to help. And if he doesn't, well, we can track him down sometime and have Fred and George prank him until he's as old as Dumbledore."

He forced a smile of appreciation. "Thanks, Ron, Hermione." They wouldn't understand if he tried to tell them. And he didn't really want to, he realized. He still needed to be able to stand on his own feet. Talking about his problems wouldn't help him in such a quest- no, it might even kill them, since everyone kept on insisting that Wizarding politics were somehow more deadly than the ordinary stuff he heard in the news.

"I can't believe him," Hermione tutted as they ordered butterbeer. "Moody really needs to keep a better eye on Mundungus."

Harry grunted noncommittally. _He _needed to keep a better eye on Mundungus. He'd have to take a night off from training and track him down. And then have a talk with him about principles and priorities.

"Moody?" Ron asked. "Why not Dumbledore?"

Hermione gave Ron a glance of exasperation. "Haven't you seen how Dumbledore's been disappearing lately? Moody is the only one, other then the Headmaster, that could stop him."

"Snape probably could," Harry cut in. "Whether he actually would, however, is another matter."

Ron wrinkled his nose. "As if that slimy git would do anything beneficial for us."

Harry grinned, thinking of his sneer and his dark, murderous eyes. "Yeah."

Hermione glanced about the establishment and, apparently having decided that no one seemed to be eavesdropping upon them, asked, "did you ever ask Dumbledore about the item that Hagrid took from the bank?"

He paused. "Ah. Yeah," he lied. His conscience bit at him. "He said that it was something to do with the lessons," he made up on the spot.

"That makes sense," said Ron thoughtfully.

The conversation mellowed out as Madame Rosmerta brought them their butterbeers and they settled down to enjoy them, everything from their toes to their ears filling with a healthy warm glow. Harry watched the people around him, at the students of various ages. There was a distinct difference between his own generation and the lower ones, he realized with interest. The younger ones had less lines on their faces, less worries. Their eyes did not hold the knowledge of Voldemort and what he could do; the Sixth and Seventh Years, however, did; they were the ones whom kept their friends close and their wands closer, smiling and watching the people around them with a tightness to their faces.

But would it be enough? Would their own increased sense of paranoia save them someday?

"Ron, would you please stop staring at Rosmerta's behind?" Hermione suddenly snapped, making Harry jump. "It's pathetic, the way you moon over her."

Harry watched as Ron's ears turned an unhealthy red. "Not like you're much better," he retorted. "Always batting your eyes after Cormac McLaggen."

Hermione stared at him. "There is nothing," she said between clenched teeth, "between Cormac and I."

As the tension suddenly began to destroy the butterbeer's taste, Harry slid from his seat and silently dismissed himself from the table. Perhaps it would be most prudent of him if he spent the next few minutes or the greater half of an hour in the bathroom? He excused himself and sidled away.

However, as he passed the girl's loo, his stomach walls suddenly turned to ice.

_"Imperio!"_

He knew that voice.

Thinking swiftly, or, perhaps, not thinking at all, he hid immediately behind the door, wand held at the ready. The door opened, Katie Bell's blank eyes gazing at him without any sense of recognition, a package in her hand- and he thought _'Stupefy!' _

His extra practice at night had been paying off. His best Quidditch player toppled to the floor, her head hitting the ground with a loud _bang_. Harry picked up the box she'd been holding, surprised. It was rather heavy, despite being roughly a hand span across and a palm deep, and it thrummed with power. Harry locked the door behind him absentmindedly.

Draco Malfoy was staring at him in shock, his face more pale and grey than he'd ever seen it. Not a word broke the tense silence until Harry opened the box and stared at the necklace inside. It was a simple, if extravagant, thing, a black obsidian stone roughly the size of his thumb wrapped tightly in opals, hanging from a delicate golden chain. "Some sort of gift for a lover, Malfoy?" He asked, softly, lightly. The necklace was dangerous, he could tell. It sang things to him, whispered things he could only half hear. "I never expected you and Katie Bell."

Malfoy ignored his jibe. "Don't touch that, Potter," he hissed. "You have no idea of what it can do."

A strange thing was happening. Something from within him was... stirring. Deep down, deep inside him in a place that was more than just his physical body, he could feel it, as if a snake were awakening deep in his gullet and stretching its long, sinuous body. "What is this, Malfoy?" He asked, his voice breathier and less imposing than he wanted. "Why do you have this?"

"Forget what it is, Potter! Give it to me!" There was definitely something interesting in Malfoy's voice- but he could not be bothered with it. The necklace's power held him in it's thrall; he wasn't thinking -the logical part of his mind told him to let it go and flee- but the power it held was so wonderful in a way that he'd never experienced before. It begged for him to touch it, to consume it- the snake in his gut hissed that _yes _he was indeed supposed to touch it-

And so he did. He reached his hand out and snatched the opal necklace from the box.


	3. Chapter 3

**Whew. Thank you for all your reviews! Did you know that for the most part (except for yesterday and today) both chapters had exactly 20 reviews? The Greek in me loved it. (Then Jewel Queen reviewed, but don't worry! I loved your review. You seem like an interesting person from your profile, too.) It gave me the necessary kick to actually upload this today instead of putting it off until next Wednesday. However, I gotta say, this chapter is a bit... slower, than the previous ones, as it is a transition chapter that's building to the (very big) happenings in the next few chapters. I hope I got it down. **

**Anyways. Onwards and upwards. **

Chapter Three

As the world pitched sharply to the left, he could hear Malfoy shouting _No!; _but that didn't make any sense, Harry laughed. There was nothing to fear. The necklace's magic held him in it's grasp as the world shrank to an impossible, infinitely small point and disappeared as if it had never been. He was left floating in space, a speck on a rushing tide, inconsequential and incomprehensible, before the magic drew him into a place that he'd never been yet had been all his life.

Reorienting himself, he landed upon the floor with his feet solidly beneath him. Not, however, on the floor of the girl's loo in the Three Broomsticks, as he should have been. The ground beneath him was soft and buoyant, like one of those trampolines that Dudley's friends had always had. It felt like silk of the oddest sort and stretched when he took a step. The world he found himself in was of the most peculiar brand as well; it was a land of darkness and light. In front of him lay a land of desolation- or what seemed to be. All was darkness and shadows, perfect, unfettered darkness that seemed to scream for him, to beg for him-

-and to his right and left there was nothing but pure, unsullied white. It stretched on forever, to his sides and behind him, as if the world was made only of fresh, powdery snow that had never seen the touch of pollution or filth. He spun about in a circle, awed.

_It's magic, _he somehow knew, some instinct, some sense that only magical folk held whispering to him in the very corners of his mind. _It's magic, and it's mine. _

Glancing about, he realized why he had come to be in such a peculiar land. Remotely, he remembered touching a necklace, and that it had made the world above twist and spin. He could see the necklace's power now, a dark blotch in the sky that sent tendrils of black into his magic, turning the fields of snow into diseased slush and soup.

_That can't be good, _he frowned. A tendril flung itself into the ground before him like a lightning strike, but thick and clouded and poisonous- and he could feel it, somewhere, on a different plane, in that peculiar different world of color, could feel the whispers of unspeakable agony, could tell that the foreign magic was poisoning him, would kill him if he did not do anything.

He threw himself at the tendril, attempting to sever it with the force of his body. Nothing happened. Harry hit the ground a few paces away, bouncing lightly; the tendril continuing to pollute, as if he hadn't existed, as if he hadn't done a thing.

_Unleash me, _snarled a voice nearby. Picking himself up, he found himself face to face with the darkness. The tendrils, he noticed, did not affect the roiling shadows in front of him. They shied away from it, as if they could not endure such a meal. _Set me free. _

He glanced at the Light of his magic, slowly decaying, slowly killing him. _You would be able to restrain it? To destroy it? To stop it from ruining my magic?_

_Of course, _the darkness hissed_. It has no power against me. _

Harry turned away and stepped closer to the darkness. When he reached the boundary between the Light and the Dark, the air glittered in front of him as if it had turned to water, water that stood like a wall and rippled and murmured with an ephemeral strength he could not question, water that might have lain cool and crisp upon some forgotten rock in some forgotten forest had it not wound its way into this place of extremes.

_It's a fence,_ he realized with wonder. _A boundary, a block, that keeps the darkness at bay_.

Hesitant, earnest, he reached a hand and pressed clammy fingers against sparkling, rippling air. The fence- boundary- whatever it was, rippled before him, as if he lay upon the earth and stared into a pond that held more moon and stars than night in it's depths. Harry watched, rapt with helpless fascination-

And voices suddenly came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing off of empty space that wasn't quite empty space.

_-to keep him safe, and protected, until he reaches his final potential of magical growth-_

_-to protect him from himself and others until he is of an age that he can make his own decisions-_

_-to ensure his continued survival by hiding that which would hurt him deep in the lower levels of his core- _

_-to grow as he grows, to care as he cares, and to relinquish control upon the time that he awakens- _

There was something definitely interesting in his veins; there was definitely something like shock, or, perhaps, terror, that made his heart race- but he couldn't be bothered with such inconsequentials as something different- something deeper, something that rocked this peculiar land of light and dark, spoke:

_Have you awakened? _

It was a voice, perhaps that of his magic, or of the undulating fence, or of both. Harry stared through the ripples, into the darkness beyond, uncertain.

_'I am awakening,' _he replied. The poisoned magic behind him marched ever closer, sweeping through with death on the wing. Touching it would kill him: he did not need to go to Madam Pomfrey to figure that one out. '_Not awakened. But I want all of my magic, nonetheless. I need it.' _

The fence rippled, semi sentient blood magic finally reaching the point where it was no longer necessary. The glittering fence began to ripple and swerve erratically, forcing him back a step as it abruptly burst into drops of what must have been water, that flew in a thousand million directions and turned to dust, to nothing, when the earth rose to meet it.

And then the magic came, roiling darkness and shadows of an impossible color and depth, of a sort he had never experienced before; and, by _Merlin_ it was screaming with delight as it flooded forward, past him, taking the white fields by storm, a morass of wild ecstasy and abandon that caught him up as it flooded the world, flooded _him, _freed from its sixteen year imprisonment and restraint.

Harry spun around and watched the snow-colored and poisoned magic suddenly consumed by the Dark, spinning about in great flurries of wind and turning to nothing but blackness, blackness everywhere, a glittering cloak that spun him up in the air until he could not help but rejoice in the freedom just as vibrantly as his magic, as it celebrated the advent of its independence.

He was entirely free, now; he was himself. And there was no greater thing.

He loved himself for it.

_XXXXX_

"Where am I?"

Something within his brain was thundering like a mad bull. Pain that followed each steady _thump _of his heart pounded through his brain, threads of red muddling the tapestry of his mind; thought was a foreign concept of which he could only fearfully question, skirting about it with the light-footed gait of a mouse.

"By Merlin- my head hurts- why am I on the ground? Of the bathroom?" A pause. "Who are you?"

It was more the annoyance than anything that forced his eyelids open. Immediately after, he groaned, the light of a merciless vibrancy and color that held no compassion for his eyes or the sake of his head.

_What happened? _

"Were you unconscious on the ground, too?" A suspicious glance. "Did you try and do something to me?"

Harry looked up, wincing as his eyes gave a sharp jab in complaint. The blurry form of Katie Bell loomed over him, hands on her hips and a most outraged expression upon her face. "And for that matter, what was_ I_ doing there?" Her tone suggested that the fault lay with him.

With an effort, Harry sat up. His brain gave an obstinate roil in his skull and he clutched it, feeling torn between the desire to vomit and the urge to curl up and enter a long, peaceful slumber of the sort he'd never escape. What had happened? Why was he in the middle of the bathroom, on the floor? He closed his eyes and struggled to remember- something about a... necklace?

Something gave a weak-willed _clink_ as he moved; Harry peered down at his hand, mystified, to find a necklace clutched within. It was a rather gaudy affair, all dark and black and pulsing obsidian, ringed with a tiara of opals that glimmered with an ill, silver light, as if they had been tarnished by the impartial brush of time. Where in the world had it come from?

"Are you listening to me?"

Something in the back of his mind tickled his skull. The necklace-

As if he had breached some sort of dam, his bout of amnesia fell before a veritable flood of memories: _Imperio!- _a box, held in Katie's hands, holding the necklace- Malfoy's expression, one of panic, of shock- and that world of dark and light, and the fence, and then the release of that darkness- of that starless night gone material and concrete.

His stomach rolled. Harry closed his eyes, sickened: with a sense he hadn't known he possessed -or, indeed, had not held previously- he could feel darkness pulsing against his skin in tandem with his heartbeat, rushing through him as if his veins no longer held sweet, crimson life but a noxious, poisonous, _corrupting _miasma.

"Fine." Harry jerked himself from his thoughts and threw himself to the side, as if from reflex, as Katie drew her wand. "I'm getting a teacher. They'll sort you out- whoever you are."

"Wait!" Merlin- where were his glasses? Harry dodged a _Stupefy _and raised his hands. _I'm defenseless! Don't attack! _"Don't you recognize me?" Had the world gone mad?

She pointed her wand. "Of course I don't. I haven't ever seen the likes of you before."

All he knew was that he couldn't go with her: he didn't need the attention. When she noticed his continued reluctance she opened her mouth, as if to curse him again-

And some_thing_ reacted.

It was dark, and evil, and monstrous. It was vile and horrifying and powerful. And it was him, it was his magic, existing in a way that shouldn't have been, in a way that ate at his heart and his soul and everything he stood for. The spell fizzled before him, Katie's eyes widening- fear, horror, terror plainly painted upon her face- and then the magic, the monster, flooded forward -Merlin, it would not stop, he could not stop- and swamped her.

Katie dropped like a stone.

Harry stared at her laying prone upon the floor, face slack, eyes closed; she was pale, pale as death, and Harry could not contain his cry. He ran to her, struggled to feel for a pulse: for one painful, clear, terrifying moment there wasn't one: and then it was there, erratic, slow. _She needs help- she needs help- _it was a mantra running through his head. _She needs help- _But he was frozen, frozen in the face of his own deed-

The door opened: a small girl with mouse brown hair stepped within, to find him looming over Katie's pale stillness, to find him with a hand at her throat and his own wand in his other hand-

And she screamed bloody murder.

Harry stood up abruptly, panic clouding his senses. The screaming wasn't helping- it was too close, too insistent, for him to think clearly: he pushed her out of the way and fled out of the bathroom, pushing through the crowd that rushed to the girl's loo in response to the terror. They let him through, as if they had not seen from whence he came, too intent upon the girl and the screaming and Harry ducked into the nearest door and waited, with pounding heart, as the sounds of footsteps and voices pounded past.

It did not take long for him to realize that he had taken asylum in the nearby boy's bathroom.

And, to his luck, it was as abandoned as he could have wished.

Recalling Katie's inability to recognize him-and other things; he shuddered and avoided that thought-, he approached the mirror.

A man stood in his place, a man all at once foreign and horribly familiar. Harry could only stare at the blurry form of Tom Riddle, his aristocratic features muddled into something of stress and fear and anxiety. His emerald eyes, hidden as they were by glasses, were unflinching as they held his gaze, and Harry could only stare back, throat tight, for Tom Riddle did not have emerald eyes.

But _Harry_ did.

There was no Voldemort in the mirror. There was only Harry, who had only a few moments before almost killed one of his friends.

_How had it happened? Why had it happened? _He didn't understand. Didn't want to understand.

With an effort, he curbed his rising hysteria and forced his focus inward, to his memories. The barrier that had separated that world of dark and light must have been some sort of ritual that his _parents_, his true parents, had used to keep his heritage a secret from others and from the Potter matriarch of the time. And when he had dismissed it- when it had burst into a thousand and one pieces- it was as if, with the flood of darkness, truth was forced to the surface as well, and the changes that had been wrecking his body had suddenly happened all at once; and his magic- Merlin, and the fence had also kept the true nature of his magic a secret.

_How long can a person live and not know so much about themselves? _he wondered, staring miserably in the mirror. _Not know their magic, or their face, or their blood? _

Harry fingered his lip, his nose, his hair; he snatched his glasses off his face and stared as the world righted itself. He could see without his glasses; it was a miracle: it was horrible. Merlin. Supposedly, he had lived with these features his entire life, hidden from view but relentlessly _there_, like a disease or a curse. It didn't make any sense. He didn't want it to make sense. He wanted to go back to Hogwarts and Anchor his glamours and never look at the... _thing _staring back at him in the mirror ever again. No wonder Katie hadn't recognized him.

_I hate him. I _hate_ Voldemort for doing this to me, _he fumed. _For corrupting my magic- and my life- in a way that shouldn't ever have been! _Merlin. It was all his fault that Harry had to hide so many things from Ron and Hermione and Dumbledore, all his fault that his magic was Dark and evil and horrid in a way he hadn't thought possible. He'd thought that magic was magic- that the only darkness or lightness to be found was in the spells themselves. Yet the darkness, roaring in his skin and blood and bones, contradicted such a thought with ease.

Perhaps it was time he told Dumbledore everything- his heritage, his secrets, about his magic. A thrill of excited anticipation went through him at the thought. He wanted to. He desperately wished that he had someone to dump his troubles on- to rant to about how difficult it was to Anchor things and to read books written by old men, to have secrets from his friends, to live with the things that he hid from his friends; Merlin, someone to tell about the truth of his blood, of his heritage; to share his deepest fears, that he'd be abandoned, that the world would find out whose son he really was- Harry's blood ran cold- that _Voldemort_ would find out whose son he really was.

_This all wouldn't be a problem if I could keep my nose out of other folks' business, _he sighed. _If I just hadn't gone on and touched Malfoy's necklace, I wouldn't be in this mess. Katie wouldn't be in this mess. _

The sound of the door opening threw him from his thoughts. Harry flung himself into a nearby stall and hastily locked the door, Malfoy's necklace clanking loudly against the wood of the wall before he could stop it.

"Harry?"

His heart stopped cold as he recognized Ron's voice.

"Harry? Are you in there?"

He couldn't very well lie, could he? He'd been doing enough of that lately to last him a lifetime. "I'm here, Ron."

The voice that came from his mouth wasn't his.

There was a quiet moment before Ron spoke up again. "Uh, Harry? You alright? You sound funny."

_Shit. Get him out, cast a couple glamours, whatever. Now. _"Of course, Ron," he replied, in that strange voice that he almost recognized- Merlin, it made the hair on his very neck stand on end, hearing it. "I'll be out in a minute- just a slight stomach ache."

"Alright then, Harry. Just be careful- there's been an attack on a girl in the girl's loo and they think she was taken out by a dark wizard."

Harry felt his heart clench: a bubble threatened to destroy his connection with his voice, but he swallowed it down, managing to ask, "is she alright?"

"She seemed pretty pale when McGonagall lifted her out. Hermione thought she said something about St. Mungo's."

St. Mungo's. He'd sent Katie Bell to St. Mungo's.

Merlin. _What sort of monster am I?_

"Well, Harry, I'll let you be." His tone was effectively embarrassed: "See ya soon!"

Harry waited for him to go before pointing his wand at his face with determination. Worrying any more about his magic or Katie or the necklace wouldn't do: he had to get some glamours on, and he had to get them on swiftly. Walking around, looking like a certain Dark Lord incarnate, would not be the greatest idea he'd ever lain claim to.

Focusing on the face that he desperately wished was his own, Harry murmured the spell and waved the wand over himself, changing his nose, his ears, his mouth-

-and then, with a brief tingle, they failed to take root and dissipated into the air much like they'd never been. Harry paused, rather upset, before he began again, teeth clenched. The words murmured from him took root in the spell: and it moved, it glided, it changed him, he knew it did- and then, when he left it to begin again, it fell- as if the load were too heavy to support.

Feeling ill, he thought he knew why it would not work. Previously, when he'd been casting his glamours, he'd been hiding a couple of stray changes -the slant of his eyebrows, the angle of his eyes. Now, however, he had a much larger project looming ahead: he had to hide his entire body from sight.

"What am I going to do?" He asked himself, despair nestling comfortably upon his shoulders with all the weight of an anvil. "What am I going to do?"

_Anchoring. _The answer came to him in a soft hiss in the back of his mind, as if the very knowledge he'd researched was exasperated with his thick wits. _That's what it's for. _Anchoring was used to make glamours stronger, to make them permanent; if he wanted to add more, he needed to get an anchor for them.

And yet- he didn't know how. It had never worked before, no matter how hard he tried.

However, he was not a man with the greatest amount of choice, so he focused upon anything he could think of- his shirt, perhaps?- and cast.

His shirt went up in flames.

_XXXXX_

"My Lord," a trembling, groveling man whispered, eyes carefully lowered and knees pressed to the floor as he kissed his Master's robes. "You summoned me?"

Snape couldn't help but sneer at Pettigrew. While it was a requirement for all of the Death Eaters to respect the Dark Lord utterly and completely, Pettigrew somehow made the act look like worshiping a toad; slimy, disgusting, and utterly, completely demeaning. The stupid rat.

"Yes..." Voldemort's crimson eyes pierced his own, as if knowing the path his thoughts had tread. "Severus, please. Step forward."

The Potion Master glided forward easily, as if he were in his own laboratory instead of the Dark Lord's receiving chamber. Bowing low, he murmured, "I am here, my Lord." Smooth. Precise. Calm.

Everything that Pettigrew was not. He quelled a smirk. "Severus, tell me- how does Dumbledore fare?"

With another bow, he replied, "Dumbledore has been growing the weaker by the month, my Lord. He leaves Hogwarts for days at a time before returning, usually ill due to a Dark curse or Dark potion. I have had to save his life more than once now in the past few months. However, because of Dumbledore seeing his own mortality, he's been- _training_ the Potter boy."

The Dark Lord's face twisted into a parody of a smile, lipless mouth curving upwards. "Poor, foolish Headmaster," he sighed. "Poor, foolish Albus who can't admit he's dead." The smile on his face deepened into something ghastly, until his lipless, noseless face was as a thing possessed. "And do you, my little spy, know what the Headmaster is teaching the boy?"

"Not yet, my Lord." No pathetic excuses: no begging.

And no _Crucio_. Perfect. "Interesting," replied the Dark Lord. "Continue as you have until the appropriate time, Severus. I shall be contacting you when the plan is to be set into motion." Snape bowed and remained standing, not dismissed. The Dark Lord turned to Pettigrew, who flinched and made to kiss Voldemort's robes. "Get up, you fool," hissed the Dark Lord: he was kicked away. "You will be following Snape to Hogwarts, to see what the Headmaster is teaching that brat Potter." Another smirk. "If, by any chance, you are... foolish enough to be caught, you'll be spending your time in a cell with Lucius- who, I'm sure, will be most interested to... introduce you to the fine establishment of Azkaban."

Pettigrew gave a pathetic squeak that the knocking on the door could not completely hide. With a wave of his hand, Voldemort opened the door lazily, allowing a flood of light to illuminate the room from the hall.

"My lord," a nondescript Death Eater touched his head to the floor, much more graceful then Pettigrew had been. "The spider is on the move."

The Dark Lord stared at the newcomer impassively. "When did you hear of this?"

"Just now, milord."

_"Crucio!" _Without warning, the curse sailed for the man, singing with a palpable lust for pain; he toppled to the floor, the tendons in his neck standing out as he screamed, the primeval cry ravishing the walls like a drowning man clutches at a ladder in his terror as he is sucked down, down, beneath the roiling black mass of the sea; Snape's hair stood on end as it continued, unbroken but receding as his screaming stole his breath and his anguish contorted his limbs.

And always, always, he couldn't help but notice the pleased smirk on the Dark Lord's face, the way his eyes narrowed in pleasure as the power of the Dark roiled over him in the aftermath of the curse; he couldn't help but notice how he hadn't been holding a wand at all-

And always, always, the awe overpowered the horror. That Lord Voldemort could cast such magic without a wand was purely beyond reason.

At last, he ended the spell. "You should reevaluate the aptitude of your connections," Voldemort hissed dispassionately as the man struggled to stand, to regain his dignity. The jerking of his limbs and shuddering of his breaths as his lungs refused to cooperate effectively thwarted his efforts. "Other informants told me similar tales not a week past."

"I- I- I'm sorry-"

"Give me results, not excuses, Zabini. I'll be having a talk with your father later this evening about your aptitude, or lack thereof. Dismissed."

Snape couldn't help the widening of his eyes. Watching the figure retreat from the room, his arms twitching discontentedly at his sides as his nerves struggled to reaffirm that they were, indeed, attached, he could see the resemblance. The dark hair, the tall stature, the confused stumble of a Pureblood heir whom has had their misconceptions of their own greatness demolished. _That_ was Zabini?

Interesting.

But the spider they were talking about was so much more.

"Are you simply going to let him be?" Snape dared to ask, his curiosity winning over his innate sense of caution. Some information was worth the potential pain.

Voldemort startled him by laughing. High, cold, and utterly inhuman, it tore at his guts with razorblades. "Let him play. Let him laugh and giggle and plot and spin his web. Catch a few pests. And get entrapped in his own manipulations."

Snape could only wonder what the spider would think, being considered as such an unimportant figure by Voldemort, being left alone, retribution restrained for one more day, one more moment-

"You are free to go, Severus."

_XXXXX_

"There you are, Harry!"

Hermione gave him a welcoming smile as he sat down next to them, his cloak pulled tightly about him. Ron frowned. "Cold, Harry?" He asked, looking around the crowded, sweaty Three Broomsticks pointedly.

Harry fought not to blush. "Something like that," he managed to reply with something related to composure. The true matter of it was that he thought walking around without his shirt would be a sure-fire way to attract desperately unwanted attention to himself- never mind the necklace that pulsed so dark upon his chest.

He felt as if everyone was staring. He felt as if everyone could feel the darkness the necklace was giving off, the disgusting, filthy darkness that was nothing compared to the darkness in his veins-

"Er, Harry, you're rather pale," murmured Hermione with concern, feeling his forehead. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Jerking back as if scorched, he struggled to control himself. Hermione looked briefly hurt; his conscience gave him a merciless jab. "Yeah- just a stomach ache. Not exactly feeling well. Might head back to Hogwarts." He stood and forced a smile. He couldn't deal with it- everyone was watching, everyone knew his secret, everyone knew his face's lie- "You two stay here and have fun- the day's only yet begun, after all. I'll meet you back at Hogwarts."

His two friends shared worried glances. "We can at least walk you there, mate-"

Harry shook his head adamantly. _I need to be alone. _"That'll take too long: by the time you get back here you won't have enough time to do anything interesting. I can take care of myself- don't worry." He smiled. "See you later!"

Free of the weighty stares and quiet tension that coiled in his shoulders at the crowd, Harry released a gusty sigh that put the wind to shame. As if to spite him for his pleasure, the chain surrounding his neck bit into his flesh as if it had a mind to grow teeth. Harry didn't doubt that it could- the necklace not only held enough power, it almost felt sentient enough to do so.

Which Harry rather hoped wasn't true, as it was currently wrapped around not only his windpipe, but his right and left common carotid arteries. _But I don't have a choice, _he agonized. _I need it. _

When he'd taken the necklace from Malfoy, he hadn't necessarily imagined that he'd end up wearing the bloody thing. But he had. Because it was the one thing standing between him and exposure.

Similar to all great discoveries, it had been purely an accident. He'd cast the glamours again, out of frustration, to suddenly find them seize and set themselves down. It had taken a moment to realize that Malfoy's necklace was more a monster than he'd thought; it would suck up as much magic as it could if he let it. But- perhaps his will, perhaps something else- had kept the spells from being swallowed by that jewelry's mighty maw: and, without much ado, he'd thrown the thing over his head.

And, as he'd half-suspected, nothing untoward occurred: he remained healthy, whole, and more Potter than one could fit into a person safely.

With a sluggish sort of pace that left nothing but the slowest of worms in first place, Harry made his way to Hogwarts castle, the air biting through his cloak and into his naked chest. It was cold, and it was beginning to rain, and Harry felt miserably frustrated. _What was Malfoy doing with such a dangerous thing anyway? _he asked himself with something more than irritation. _None of this makes sense!_

_XXXXX_

"Hey Harry," began Hermione as she lightly buttered her toast, "are you feeling better now?"

Harry nodded and managed a smile. The concern was really rather mollifying to the small strain of nerves in the back of his head that tingled whenever he felt that he wasn't treating his two best friends as he should, yet it wasn't enough to save him from a small slice of irritation. He didn't want to think of yesterday. At all. "Of course, Hermione," he replied.

Ron frowned. "Are you sure? You were really pale." He commented as he dug into his pancakes. Harry watched with morbid fascination as they disappeared beneath his fork and knife. "Right after Katie Bell was found knocked out in the girl's loo, too."

He latched onto the offered tidbit of information hungrily. "Did they ever figure out why she was there?" He asked, rather wondering -with not a little guilt- what in the world he'd done to her.

Hermione was the one who answered. "Not yet," she replied. "But the girl who discovered her said that she could identify the culprit if she saw him again." She frowned thoughtfully, fork poised over a rather syrup-soaked orange. "She did say, though, that whoever he was, he wasn't a Hogwarts student- he looked much older."

Harry blinked, interested in a way different than he had been. He looked older than he really was, when he was without his glamours? "Did she say anything else?"

When she shook her head, Harry slumped, disappointed. Ron picked up the conversation by turning it back to Katie. "Did they at least say how Katie was?" He asked.

It was Ginny, sitting nearby, that answered. "Oh, she's still alive," she announced through her orange juice. "But she hasn't woken up yet. The early tests suggest a curse of some kind."

No one noticed Harry pale: too busy with interrogating Ginny, who'd talked with a girl who'd visited Katie earlier in the morning, they had their heads turned away. _A curse? I didn't put a curse on her! I just-_ But by Merlin, he didn't know _what_ he'd done to her. His magic had just- _attacked_.

Hedwig took advantage of the following lull in conversation and alighted upon his plate, prim and proper, snowy white and pure in a way that made Harry's heart ache. His magic had been like that too, once. "Hey there, girl," he murmured, taking the scroll from her talons and feeding her a piece of bacon from off of Ron's plate, ignoring his affronted cry. "Thank you."

Pecking him lightly on the nose, she flew off and returned to the Owlery, leaving him with his mail, as disparate as it was. He had two letters, instead of the customary update on the newest attacks and gossip of Wizarding Britain.

Harry ripped open the Daily Prophet first, leaving the worst for last. Hermione leaned over with interest.

_**'Boy-Who-Lived Member of Wizengamot!**_

_by __Rita Skeeter_

_Ministry politics are often a hot topic for debate across the nation, especially in this present time and place, with You-Know-Who darkening the horizon. The question of who's on which side and what's what leaves everyone guessing. Our resident hero, Harry James Potter, the Chosen One, has decided to enter the folk and clean up the Ministry by becoming one of the elite wizards that run the ministry, the Wizengamot. _

_This is a great undertaking, indeed, that has been received in all sorts of ways. I interviewed one Rufus Scrimgeour about the recent development, whom deigned to respond to my inquiries. He stated that it was "good to see that young Mr. Potter has finally seen the potential his reputation gives him." but fervently hoped that it did not go to the boy's head, a matter that many politicians across the nation are concerned with. While Madame Griselda Marchbanks refused to answer any questions, Dirk Cresswell, head of the Goblin Liaison Office, stated that he thought that "the boy would soon find himself trapped in a very humiliating situation if he continued as he has been." _

_Apparently, the Chosen One's first meeting with the Wizengamot did not go altogether smoothly. Not only did eyewitnesses say that he arrived late, but he came covered head to toe in ashes and soot, with only his glasses clean. Indeed, those interviewed said that he didn't speak a word through the entire meeting, and looked like a fish out of water...' _

"What does it say, mate?" Ron asked over yet another pile of pancakes. Harry passed it to him silently, unable to keep his face from burning. Merlin, he'd been an idiot.

Ron didn't laugh at him, nor did Hermione. "I might have to pay a little visit to Rita Skeeter," said Hermione pleasantly as she put some jam on another piece of toast. "Just to check up on her health."

Harry smiled gratefully. "That's okay, Hermione," he replied. "Let me take care of it."

"Well, just remember, we're here for you," announced Ron as he cleaned his plate. "Don't worry about a thing."

Without answering, -what could he say to that?- Harry opened up the rest of the mail, tearing through the envelope with ease.

_'Dear Lord Black,_

_Salutations. Your presence has been requested at a Ministry function on the next Saturday, found on the Twelfth of October. It will be hosted at the Scrimgeour manor. The Floo will be open for all accepted visitors. _

_Tiberius McLaggen _

_Wizengamot Event Organizer'_

Harry sighed. Merlin.

Hermione snatched the letter from him and swept through it in a second. "A Ministry function?"

Ron frowned and read it himself. "Not again!"

"My thoughts exactly," Harry chuckled. "At Scrimgeour manor, though? I didn't know that he was so rich." People were beginning to file out of the Great Hall; it was almost eight, after all, after which they would be expected in their classes.

He looked up from observing the people shuffling by when he realized that neither Ron nor Hermione had replied to his statement. "What?"

They were staring at him as if he'd grown up under a rock. "What?" He asked again, beginning to feel disconcerted. "Do you know something I don't?"

"Harry..." Hermione shook her head. "The Scrimgeours are a Pureblood family," she said, as if it explained everything. To Ron, Harry noted, it seemed to.

"I don't know how that's relevant," he admitted. "So what if they're Pureblood?"

Ron was the one who answered this time. "When you're Pureblooded, Harry, it doesn't matter if you're rich or not- manors are always passed down through the family." He frowned. "Well, except for families that have to sell them due to money problems. I'm sure you have at least two of them, with inheriting the Black and Potter houses."

Harry nodded. "Yeah," he replied. "I have yet to visit them, though." Mundungus flashed through his head. Oh yes. It was high time he visited the estates he owned. High time indeed. What sort of Lord would he be, if he allowed some filthy thief to steal from him? To disrespect Sirius' name?

Hermione scowled. "You really should visit them. What if Mundungus steals from you again?" She asked, unconsciously repeating his line of thought. "You could be accused of using your title of Lord improperly- and then, in the worst case scenario, have all of it taken away!"

"They can do that?" Harry asked, surprised. "If I don't uphold the family honor and all that?"

Ron nodded. "Definitely, mate. My great-great Aunt Esmeralda had that happen to her. Was the Lady for the Prewitt family and she got into some drug or something- and she got displaced. Completely eradicated from the family." He nodded sagely. "It's why the Prewitt family's kinda died out. All of her children were obliterated from the family line and..." A shrug. "It only survives through my mother now."

Harry frowned, unable to stop a sense of melancholy to swamp him at Ron's story. Would that be his fate, as well? To lose everything, when he almost had it in his hands?

Merlin.

_XXXXX_

The day did not improve as it wore on. This was, of course, due to the fact that the first class of the day was headed by none other than Severus Snape, the bane of all things Gryffindor. A rather sallow looking man in what was probably his middle ages, he carried himself with the air of someone who was no stranger to the whims of the shadows and darkness, bearing down upon miscreants with his great beak of a nose and his greasy, moldy-candle sort of smell that followed him about like an obsessed stalker. The man's physical appearance rather befitted his temperament. A bitter, sour, and all around gloomy disposition could not completely hide, however, the sharpness that lay beneath, like a valley of knives covered by a swift and ever-flowing river.

But none of that was interesting Harry at the current moment; no, his attention was drawn to something else- the way that Malfoy's face was slowly morphing itself into a duck's bill. He and Ron snorted with laughter.

"Slacking, Potter?"

Harry blinked as Snape approached them, a dangerous smirk settling into his cheeks. Ever since he had stolen from him -and gotten away- he had been somewhat wary. Not fearful, but... He turned to Ron and hissed, "Snape's coming."

It was too late, however; Snape was there, and had caught them lazing about in the hopes that the class would end the tiniest bit early. "An F today, I think, for the both of you," he hissed. Snape, Harry noticed, only looked the least bit happy when he was giving students bad grades. His eyes seemed to gleam in satisfaction and his smirk was always more wry than bitter when he was ruining his students' days. "And... oh... twenty points from Gryffindor." And when he snapped up all the points he could from Gryffindor, he positively glowed as only a Slytherin could.

He and Ron glared mutinously under his gaze, but said nothing; their complaints against his unjust behavior would begin only after they were far away from him, where he could not hear. "Potter," he suddenly snapped. "Let's see how you've improved at nonverbal magic, shall we?" He drew his wand from the depths of his robe and held it lazily aloft. "Ready? Begin."

Ron had barely enough time to stumble out of the way before Snape sent a flurry of spells Harry's way. His magic- that darkness that coiled within him, that was more curse than blessing- told him that they were on the very line between Dark and Light, told him that if he did not move or defend himself he'd be cursed six ways to Sunday. Harry flung himself to the right, following this suddenly acquired sense unquestioningly, grappling for his own wand.

They'd begun to attract the attention of duelists nearby; they hurried out of the way and begun whispering amongst themselves, a soft rumble that washed against his ears like waves upon a shore. Snape snarled something else and, before he could think, Harry bellowed _"Protego!" _

The moment he released the spell he knew something was wrong. It was as if he had run water through a clogged pipe; only the most pathetic drops of disgusting, filthy mud plopped out the end. The shield before him was barely much of anything, a spider's gossamer web that carried no inner steel and that broke beneath the brunt of Snape's spell like a snapped twig. Harry found himself thrown back onto the floor, his body tingling as if he'd gotten zapped by a sharp, painful electric shock.

He sat up, dazed. What had happened? Why hadn't his shield held?

Snape gave a sharp, nasty sound that might've passed for a chuckle. "I do believe we were practicing _nonverbal_ spells, Mr. Potter. Not that," he gave a smirk, a smirk brimming with the sour humor so characteristic of Slytherins, "your shield would have even appeared with the strength you just displayed. That was the most pathetic thing I have ever seen in my career as a professor- and otherwise."

A titter in the crowd watching; Harry felt his face burn, shame creeping up his neck and wrapping over his cheeks like cloth. He forced himself to stand and keep his expression something akin to neutrality whilst he roiled in confusion and worry within. Why hadn't his spell worked?

"I do believe that that is another ten points from Gryffindor for that pathetic display. Do come back to my class next time with some semblance of evidence that you have learned _something_ during your years at Hogwarts- or do everyone a favor and don't bother coming back at all." Spinning away, he snapped at the audience, "get back to your practicing!" He left Harry there as if he were nothing but dirt beneath his boots.

Ron ran up to him as the crowd dispersed. "Damn Snape. What did he do to you?" He drew his wand, as if readying to null any jinxes or hexes he'd been victim to.

Harry shook his head rather numbly. "The spell that got me wasn't really much of anything." It had been weak, more tame than anything that he'd ever expect that Snape would throw at him. "An electric shock." Purposely turning his back on the class, he forced himself to smile. " Oh well. We're out of here soon, right?"

Ron frowned at him, sensing his evasion. "Well, yes. Why didn't your shield work right? You've always had the strongest shield amongst the DA."

He shrugged in response. "I don't know. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention right or something." His conscience jabbed him for lying. He _did _have an idea why it hadn't worked.

Yet it was an idea so odd, so peculiar, so outlandish that even he could not take a bite of the fruit it offered; was repulsed by the very idea. No; this was an idea better left for himself to deal with.

Nothing further was said on the matter. Harry told Hermione only as much as he had told Ron, and she, in her turn, was much more reluctant to let the matter go as he wished. "Perhaps you should go to Madam Pomfrey about it," she offered as Ron and he walked her to Ancient Runes. "Or even Dumbledore. Can't be too careful in this day and age."

"Yes, Hermione," he replied absently. "I'll do that." Inwardly, he sighed. Merlin; was that all he could do, now? Lie and lie and lie? Soon he'd begin manipulating people, too. Like a Slytherin.

The sight of a certain blond head immediately to their front derailed his train of thought, instead making him all the more aware of the necklace lying cold against his chest and the Harry it hid from the world. The possibility of answers -finally, for once- glittered tantalizingly close. "Yes..." he said, drawing both Ron and Hermione's attention. "I think I'll go to Madam Pomfrey. Just in case."

"Want me to go with you, mate?"

A grateful smile. "Nope, no need, Ron. I'm sure she'll just tell me I'm having an off day. Goodbye you two!" With a wave, he forced himself between two closely huddled girls and hid himself out of sight in an alcove. Sometimes it amazed him how swiftly he could disappear in a crowd, being the _Chosen One _as he was. Perhaps it was a lasting reminder of his time spent with the Dursleys; whenever they hadn't needed him, he'd disappeared into the yard or his cupboard, to quietly enjoy the relative peace of his invisibility. As well, for the first few years he'd spent at Muggle elementary school, he'd _had_ to learn how to disappear in order to avoid Dudley and his gang.

Unsure if he should be grateful or not about his skill, he put it out of his mind and flung the Cloak from his bag. He'd taken to wearing it about the school with him at Hermione's insistence, and it had paid off well; not in the way, perhaps, that she'd originally planned, but Harry couldn't be bothered with that as he struggled to catch sight of Malfoy, who'd disappeared in the flowing throng.

Wary of pushing, as it wouldn't do if he were to pop out of nowhere accidentally, he kept to the walls and sidled through, feeling his heart beat a tattoo into his chest. Merlin. Awkward questions would be asked if he were found out. Especially by Ron and Hermione. He could not endure it if he were to be exposed; yet he had to march on, as the necklace that thumped near his heart held too many secrets that he held no answers for. What if it was slowly killing him?

He'd taken the danger into consideration when he'd first decided to use the necklace, as he'd needed a magical piece of jewelry for his anchoring; yet, despite the fact that he'd decided to trust his magic's instincts, he couldn't simply let the matter go. The question of what Malfoy was doing with the necklace and Katie Bell was a troubling one, an insistent burning sensation that spread across his skin whenever he thought about it. No; he had to find Malfoy.

Upon reaching the furthest end of the hallway and sidling past Ron and Hermione, who were giggling together in a most peculiar way, Harry spotted him once more and followed behind him closely. The crowd thinned out; Malfoy passed through and slipped up a nearby set of stairs. Harry followed, silent, invisible, earnest.

The new floor was an abandoned one; so high up in the school, the only people to pass through were those going to their Astronomy class, which wouldn't be for more than a couple hours.

Which made it a perfect place to ambush him.

Spotting a conveniently abandoned classroom nearby, Harry grabbed a hold of Malfoy and dragged him in.

The classroom was a dark and lonely affair. Light drifted in from a dust choked window, a sickly looking beam that painted the walls a foul orangish hue. Desks were strewn about, all of them broken or vandalized to the point of no return; it looked, for all intents and purposes, like a Muggle garbage dump. He found himself in a dirt clogged world that gave no hint of friendliness or comfort.

"Who's there?" Came the cry, a sharp bark he'd heard many times before. Malfoy only got more annoying as the years went by. _"Stupefy!"  
_

Harry threw himself to the side, the Cloak slipping off him in his haste. "Merlin, Malfoy," he snarled, unable to help himself, "calm down, will you?"

His rival's expression was one of shocked outrage; the grip on his wand begged for snapping. "What is the meaning of this, _Potter?_" The tone suggested that _Mudblood _replace his name. "Dragging me in here, through such unnecessarily vulgar means-and into such a disgusting, filthy place- what do you want?"

"I want to talk," Harry replied, forcing himself to sound pleasant. He needed answers, not the typical bickering between Slytherin and Gryffindor rivals. "I want answers."

Malfoy's eyes narrowed; there was a gleam in them that Harry could not define, but distrusted immensely. "What a place to... _talk _to me in. One might think you had something else planned."

Harry blinked at him. "Malfoy, I don't know what you're talking about," he said honestly. "I have questions, and you have answers. That's it. I'm not going to attack you."

A sneer. "What keeps me from attacking you? From cursing you into tomorrow and leaving you here?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. Slytherins were so difficult to deal with. "Because you want to know some things too, don't you?" Harry said pleasantly, shrewdly; "Surely we can strike a deal of some sort." Within, his blood sped through his veins like quicksilver. If Malfoy attacked him, he might not be able to defend himself- surely could not rely on his old friend, _Protego, _who had betrayed him to Snape only a little while past.

Perhaps this hadn't been the greatest of ideas.

"Alright." If glares could kill, he'd have been laying on the floor dead long since. He took comfort in it and steadied himself. "You'd better tell the truth, Potter," he threatened. "I want to know how you survived the curse on that necklace," he motioned to the bump beneath his shirt, "and didn't tell anyone that I tried to kill you. Didn't tell anyone that I cast a...rather interesting curse upon one of your Gryffindors."

"Those are all easily answered," Harry lied. "But I want to know certain answers in turn."

His eyes narrowed; Harry couldn't guess why. Did he seriously think he would simply give him answers, free of charge? "Like what?"

Remembering the list he'd made up in his mind only a couple days ago, he recited, "I want to know who this necklace was meant for, what this necklace is, and why you had it." Three for three; it was fair enough.

"Simple enough. You first."

Harry frowned. "Oh, I don't think so, Malfoy. We'll go one at a time." He hoisted himself up upon a desk, running his fingers through the grain of the wood. At some point or another, someone had taken a knife to the thing, carving great, snake-like curves in it that he traced idly with a finger, waiting for Malfoy to talk.

"The necklace came from my family vault," the Slytherin replied. "I took it out."

"Why?"

A smirk. "Not your turn to ask questions, Potter. Now. Why didn't you tell anyone that I cast an Unforgivable on Katie Bell?"

"Because I wanted to know your reasoning before I turned you in," he replied. It was a lie- but it was something that Malfoy would probably expect from him. "I wanted to make sure you didn't need any help or anything."

He sneered. "Contrary to popular belief, Potter, not everyone wants saving- especially saving from the likes of you."

Harry ignored the jibe with the ease of practice. "My turn. Who was the necklace for?"

Malfoy stared at him. His expression told him nothing; he was a blank slate. "Who said it was meant for anyone?"

He narrowed his eyes. "You _Imperio_'d one of my Quidditch players, Malfoy. And ordered her to do something with the necklace. Maybe to have her touch it herself? Perhaps to give to someone else?"

"Think what you will. It wasn't meant for anyone." This was a side of the Slytherin he'd never seen before; his chin was set stubbornly and he looked like nothing would pry his secrets from him. "My turn. Why didn't you tell anyone that I tried to kill you?"

Harry frowned, successfully diverted. "But you didn't. That was an accident. The necklace wasn't meant for me."

Malfoy stared at him as if he were stupid. Or, perhaps, like he were a bug of the sort he'd never seen before; either way, it was a look he was well acquainted with. "Whatever, Potter," he snapped. "Let's hurry this up. I don't want to talk to you any more than necessary."

"Me neither," agreed Harry fervently. "Now. Tell me of this necklace."

_XXXXX_

Midnight found Harry sitting before the Mirror of Erised.

While this was nothing new -ever since he'd discovered it, he'd found himself drawn to it a couple nights a week- the image he watched so carefully, that he drank in so desperately, had changed in a manner he could not understand. James and Lily were not the sole stars that glittered in the mirror's depths; no, Ron and Hermione both stood beside them, quietly accepting, never judging, ever loyal.

He could not understand why his innermost desire had changed. His relationship with his best friends had not changed at all in the past month. They were as close as they'd ever been.

So why...?

Harry sighed and shook his head. There were many, many things he simply did not understand. His magic, his mind, the politicians, the mirror. None of it made sense to him. It was as if he were drowning without water; each time he struggled for breath a new enigma was clogging his lungs. Merlin. Could one die from simply not knowing anything? If they could, he'd be struck down from where he stood.

And yet, in some cases, he felt as if he knew too much. His heritage, his duties, his responsibilities; they weighed upon him like so many bricks, each heavier than the last. He had to hide his heritage; he had to keep it a secret from everyone; he had to assume the responsibility of a Wizengamot member; he had to fight for the respect of those that disliked him without question.

He had to take care of everything he owned.

Another sigh. He had to do this. He had to do that. _When will this end? When will I be able to do what I want, instead of what I should? _

"Back again, Harry?"

Torn violently from his thoughts, he leapt into the air and spun about. "Headmaster. What are you doing here?"

Dumbledore approached the Mirror until he stood before it alongside him. "The same thing you are. Gazing."

Harry followed his eyes to the Mirror, where Ron, Hermione, and the Potters smiled back at him. "Did you have it returned here?" He asked. A thought came to him, and he added, "by Hagrid?"

"I did," he admitted, stepping closer. Despite the fact that he and Harry were almost next to one another, he could not see Dumbledore in the mirror's glass. "Very acute of you, Harry."

"Why?"

The other man took a moment to reply. "There comes a time in our lives, Harry," he finally said, "when we lose direction. When what we're doing seems useless, or ineffective, or disregarded. And at that time, it helps to have a reminder of why you are doing it, why you are striving so hard when no one else understands."

A silence descended upon them, one that was painfully uncomfortable in it's character. Merlin. Was he trying to tell him he knew of his attempts to get stronger? Or was he... "Perhaps, if you told the people about you, your actions wouldn't go unacknowledged," he said, knowing full well he was being an utter hypocrite, that it was not so simple. "Does it have anything to do with your hand?"

Dumbledore gave him a glance that was too piercing to be casual. "Would you like to go with me to the Ministry gathering, Harry?"

Harry blinked at the change of topic. "Er..."

"I've decided that it might be better for you if someone were to introduce you to the world of politics, instead of simply unleashing you upon it."

"I... thank you, sir," Harry said, slowly, uncertain. Dumbledore had sprung it upon him rather suddenly.

"Fantastic, Harry!" Dumbledore beamed at him. "As my portkey transports automatically at six o'clock in the evening, I would ask you to be there at... let's say, ten minutes before?"

"Sure. Yeah. They gave you a portkey?" He asked.

"You did not get one, I take it?"

Harry turned away from the Mirror. "No, I didn't. The letter said I was to Floo there instead."

A soft chuckle. "I think someone was making fun of you," said Dumbledore. "Most often, we are given portkeys to take us to the place we're supposed to go."

His cheeks burned. "Oh."

Before silence could descend upon them, Harry found himself beginning, "Headmaster..."

"Yes, Harry?"

_Malfoy is planning something._ No, he couldn't say that. He'd be asked how he knew, and that'd connect with other questions he really didn't need._ Voldemort is stirring. _That didn't quite fit, wouldn't give Dumbledore the right message. _I am why Katie's in the Hospital Wing! _Immediately rejected. _My magic is not Light anymore! It's Dark! And I think it's impacting my ability to cast spells! _No; he seemed like he was complaining and whining. _My father is Lord Voldemort! _No.

But by Merlin he wanted to tell him. Wanted to tell him everything. Wanted someone to rely on. Wanted someone to complain to that it wasn't goddamn _fair _that Tom Riddle was his father and that he had to take care of schoolwork and that he had to read some thousand page book because he was a member of the Wizengamot and had to deal with Malfoy and the knowledge that he'd survived something he shouldn't have! Again!

The necklace lay heavy against his chest, pulling at him, touching both his magic and his flesh. He wanted to throw it away, to destroy it, to escape its history and its past. That such a thing was even in the same room as him-

The Devil's Hand was a legend that was found only in the most gruesome of tales. Said to have originally been property of Merlin himself, it had passed into the hands of a certain wizard of unworthy report whom kept it with him at all times, a badge of honor, a banner that demanded more respect than a whole cohort of military men could ever incite. The necklace -for a necklace it was, all opal and obsidian of exquisite craftsmanship- gained a reputation as it passed hands, often through murder and other insidious means- death, decay, and evil became the necklace's home. And slowly, as the legend went, the innate magic of it had been corrupted. What was once the most Light of artifacts became one of the most feared and reviled as it's power of corruption became clear. When held in the hands of one of the Light the necklace became as if alive; and nothing, then, could save them, as the jewelry proceeded to corrupt all the magic in the individual and absorb it, to rip the magic from their core as if they'd been scalped and leave them Muggle.

And he'd survived. By sacrificing the very thing that made him Light.

"Is there anything you wish to tell me, Harry?"

The tone- thoughtful, kind, considerate; he could not help but take a shuddering breath. "I..."

An image flashed before his eyes. Dumbledore, laying prone on the Hospital Wing bed, dying.

"I need my vault key, actually." A resounding hollowness filled him. "As Lord Black-Potter, I must begin taking over the responsibilities that come with such a title."

He could feel Dumbledore's eyes upon him and he refused to look up from the accepting eyes of his mother to meet them. "Of course, Harry. I was instructed by your parents to keep the key until you were of age, but, as you are, by all accounts, a legal adult, I see no reason why not. I'll have it sent to you tomorrow."

"And I would also like to visit the properties I own. I'll have to leave the school, so I need your permission to go."

Dumbledore was silent for a moment. "Of course, Harry," he answered. "However, as you are a major target for Voldemort, I would suggest that you go with a guard of some sort."

"That isn't necessary, Headmaster, sir," Harry replied dully. "I can disguise myself pretty well. With glamours." He paused. "Also, I was wondering... how is Katie? Katie Bell?"

"Katie is recovering slowly. A Dark wizard most likely attacked her with a powerful blast of Dark magic, for reasons the healers of St. Mungo's haven't uncovered as of yet." A small pause in the conversation; Harry stood, ramrod straight, distinctly uncomfortable, waiting. "Very well then, Harry, if that is all...?"

No. "Yes."

"Very well, Harry. Do not be afraid to come to me if you have a need for anything. My ears are always interested in new bits of information. Almost as much as my nose."

He left, shutting the door gently behind him.

Harry couldn't help but think that the door was shutting on his last opportunity to tell the truth.

_XXXXX _

Draco watched as his Godfather poured himself a glass of Firewhiskey with a sense of doom.

It was a careful, precise movement. Severus picked up the bottle smoothly, slowly: the Firewhiskey was poured in a controlled trickle that neither splashed nor spilt onto the deep mahogany coffee table set before them. His face was calm, almost reflective, as if seeing the drink in a different way than the physical.

Draco hated it.

It was something his father had often done before he'd been sent to Azkaban. After he'd done something truly stupid -destroyed his mother's rose garden, or went flying on his broom when no one was around- his father would summon him to his study. The first time he'd been sent up, he'd thought he was being rewarded: his father's study, after all, was where he did everything 'important.' It was where certain private death eater meetings were held; it was where his father took his allies for long, serious talks. Soon, however, he only came to recognize it as where he sent Draco when he was in very deep trouble.

And when he got into the study, his father would be there, standing before the fireplace. He'd invite him to sit, and he always did, because the seats were comfortable in the face of his father's wrath, and his father would poor a glass, just a glass, of Firewhiskey, just like Severus was doing, and he'd ask-"

"Subsequently, Draco, I was wondering what you were doing today."

It was always a statement, but he always answered anyway. "I did some homework, talked with some friends..."

"And at Hogsmeade."

Dread curdled in his stomach. "I went and walked through the village." A Malfoy did not shop at those mediocre stores: they _walked_ through them. "And then I returned a bit early."

"A bit early, you say?" The tone was wry; thoughtful. Draco could feel his heart beating faster. "I wonder. Why did you leave a 'bit early'?"

"I was bored," he lied. It was useless, he knew- it often was, when his Godfather himself invited him into his private chambers. He already knew everything. "And it was cold."

His eyes bored into his own; Draco glanced away, mindful of Legilimency and his own trifling attempts at Occlumency. "Do you know what happened to one Katie Bell, Draco?" He switched tactics. "Do you know why she was found on the floor?" When he shook his head, he answered for him. "She was assaulted by a force so Dark that it took one look at her own innate, Light magic and completely shut her down."

Draco blinked. "That sort of thing is possible?" He asked despite himself.

"Possible, yet very, very rare. It takes a wizard of the Darkest caliber to achieve such an effect- and such a darkness is not attainable unless one is of a Dark, Pureblooded family."

He paused- and began to hope, very discreetly. _He doesn't know! _He thought victoriously. _He doesn't know I lost the Devil's Hand! I still have time! _"I didn't do anything to Katie Bell," he denied. "I understand why you'd think so- but I didn't. I don't attack random people I don't really know."

Yet it was peculiar. He'd left Potter and Katie laying on the floor, one of them probably dying and the other probably getting blamed for it, and yet it was Katie that was slowly slipping away. It made him wonder that- perhaps- that what he'd seen hadn't been a trick of the light at all...

That Potter wasn't really Potter...

"You are one of the few here that has the capability to do this, Draco," snapped Severus. "I know that you disappeared from your little group around this time. You don't have an alibi. Didn't Lucius teach you any better?"

Draco glared at the snub on his father. "I do so have an alibi! I was out buying quills. I forgot to get some and doubled back."

The Defense professor rolled his eyes. "As if that is going to stand up against Dumbledore's interrogation-"

"It will! I did go buy them. Go and check if you like."

"Maybe I will."

For a moment, the two stared at one another; the air between them seemed super-charged with tension. Then Severus smirked, and ordered, "So tell me about the Devil's Hand."

He paled.

_XXXXX_

A carriage picked them up from the portkey point and rolled its way towards what was most likely the Scrimgeour's manor. Dumbledore was silent and serene beside him, decked out in star-spangled, purple robes. It made Harry's eyes hurt and respect to curdle in his stomach. His Headmaster would always be himself, no matter the situation. Oddly, it gave him hope.

And yet, despite the outrageous color scheme, they were of a quality far finer than Harry could have ever guessed at. His own robes, the best ones that he owned, were merely the dress robes he'd worn to the Yule Ball two years past, mended to his size. And they were made of simple fabric that did not shimmer in the carriage's light and were not charmed to sparkle on their own.

Apprehension bit at his throat with bands of steel, the flesh of his neck squeezed until the bones felt like snapping. This would not be a repeat of the Wizengamot meeting- he would not make a fool of himself again. He had studied for this. He had reviewed (most of) the self updating law book that Madam Marchbanks had given him as well as the guide to Wizengamot protocol. He would not make a fool of himself again. He had studied for this; he would not let himself panic over some issue with his clothing.

The carriage rolled to a stop, the door opened. A servant in white and green livery bowed them out and Harry couldn't help but stare, awed. The manor was a handsome affair, with four levels of windows and alabaster walls that stretched to the softly snowing, star-spangled sky. It was magic. And it was beautiful.

"How do you like my home, Mr. Potter?"

Harry turned from the sky to meet the Minister of Magic's brown eyes. Rufus Scrimgeour was a lion of a man, his hair and beard more of a mane than anything. He limped to a stop in front of him, nodding to Dumbledore beside him. "It's magnificent," he replied, waving an arm to encompass the whole of the manor. "The snow is a very nice touch."

"Been in the family since the time of King Arthur," he claimed. "But enough about that. I apologize for not personally welcoming you to the Wizengamot this last meeting, as I had not received a notice that you would be joining us."

Harry blinked at him, slowly. The Minister stared back, his gaze suddenly much different than it had been, much more penetrating, disconcerting, _colder._ His apology rang wrong upon his ears. Why?

_He thinks that you did it for attention, _a voice whispered in his ear. _He thinks you arrogant and immature and a waste of his time. _

"No need to apologize," Harry managed to reply. "Water under the bridge."

The advent of another carriage interrupted whatever the Minister had been going to say. Instead, he motioned them up the steps to the front door. "Both of you will surely make yourselves comfortable in the manor," he said with a smile that Harry couldn't help but think was more of a baring of teeth. "There is food and wine and music, and when everyone arrives we may begin to serve dinner."

"Shall we go, Harry?" Dumbledore asked as the Minister turned away from them. Harry nodded, confusion and worry an abscess that he felt everyone could see. With an effort he put a pleasant expression on his face. The book the goblin had given him had said, repeatedly, that the Master of a Line would soon find himself dead if he revealed himself to be weak, and confusion and worry were weaknesses that others could exploit with ease.

His breath was stolen from him as they marched through the entrance. It was as if he had stepped into another world, a world of white and green and glittering magic that bedazzled and confused the eye. The walls, a soft creamy white, were a springboard for a sensation of vibrant green decor along the walls, found in great draperies that hung like the House banners when the victor was being determined for the House Cup. There was neither too much green, nor too much white; everything blended together yet did not lose their own sense of self.

And yet, that wasn't the whole of it; the people inside the cavernous room were like shooting stars woven into a great tapestry. Harry felt he was looking into the past, with the women wearing long, flowing dresses with large puffy sleeves and their hair tied up gracefully, long and flowing and luxuriant. The men wore robes and suits of the colors of their family- someone there wore orange and red, and another wore blue and yellow; some of it, Harry couldn't help but think, clashed in a way that gave Dumbledore's robes a run for their money.

And by Merlin, all of them must have worn a fortune's worth in fabric and jewelry.

"Come along, Harry," said Dumbledore, leading the way to a table nearby. Tables covered the entirety of the cavern, circling a small rise -a stage- in the middle of the floor, where a light illuminated a rather striking woman singing a song of love and loss in a soft soprano. Hardly anyone was paying attention to her, however; instead, they seemed absorbed in their conversations, smiling and smiling and smiling.

Harry looked about him in curiosity. Everyone was smiling. It was unnatural. They reminded him of manikins in the Muggle stores, made only to display clothes with silly little smiles and silly little faces. What lay beneath? Who of them worked for Voldemort? Who could he trust?

With a start, he realized that Dumbledore was leaving him behind. He hurriedly joined him at the table and sat down in the chair beside him. "They smile a lot," Harry observed, hoping to make conversation. "Why?"

Dumbledore chuckled. "It is called the Pureblood Pastime. Everyone tries to achieve small victories against one another in hopes of furthering the ambitions of their family and themselves. Especially for themselves."

Harry stared at him. His book hadn't mentioned anything like that. "So... it's sort of like an eat or be eaten world?"

"Indeed, Harry. Exactly so."

Someone detached themselves from a group and approached them. "Albus!"

Dumbledore smiled. Harry could tell, somehow, that it wasn't a smile that was very genuine. "Ah, Tiberius. Good to see you."

A rather scruffy old man sat himself down into the seat on the other side of Dumbledore. "The feeling's mutual, Albus. How've you been, lately? Getting ready to finish a particular Dark Lord?"

Harry blinked. This man wanted _Dumbledore_ to defeat Voldemort? "Perhaps," replied Dumbledore. "How is your nephew, Damocles?"

Tiberius snorted. "Besotted as ever with that Letty Gunthrup." He did not acknowledge Harry.

Confused, but conscious that it'd be rude to ask why he thought Dumbledore would defeat Voldemort, he let his eyes wander about the cavern, shifting from group to group. Here someone was getting food from the impossibly large buffet table; another was leaning against a column, listening to a story.

They all looked the same in their robes of different colors. How could they stand it?

"Harry," called Dumbledore. He jumped and looked up somewhat guiltily at his lax in attention. "I'm leaving with Tiberius, I'll be back shortly."

Apprehension curdled in his stomach once more, yet he swallowed down his initial protest. He could take care of himself. Right? "Sure thing, Headmaster," he said respectfully. As they left, Harry heard Tiberius Ogden say, "I feel for you, Albus, taking care of that useless, arrogant boy. Why, I heard just the other day-"

Harry's heart plummeted. Merlin, he had made a very bad impression upon the Wizengamot with his previous spectacle. How was he going to fix it?

The sound of footsteps sliced through his thoughts, and he turned, to meet the dark eyes of a wizard that made his magic sing.

He was a rather tall and regal looking man in his forties or fifties. Instead of going plump, as some men did when their bodies caught up with their age, the only thickness on him was his muscles, which seemed to stroke him as he glided forwards. His robes were a dark, crimson that reminded Harry uncomfortably of Voldemort's eyes and a light blue that, on anyone else, would not have matched particularly well. And yet the man pulled it off with such an air that made it pleasing, even desirable.

"Hello," he said, an amused smile curling along his lips. "You are Lord Black-Potter, correct?"

He could only nod, his voice silenced by the magic he could sense in the man before him. Merlin, he'd never felt anything like it; indeed, had never thought it possible to feel someone else's magic at all. It was awkward and foreign and peculiarly intimate, as if he were reading his soul.

"My name is Hugh Westerson," the man said. "If I may sit?"

With a blink Harry was drawn back into reality. "Oh- of course," he said ineloquently, motioning to the table. "Have a seat."

The man sat with a flurry of his robes that couldn't have been accidental. "So you are the new anomaly of the Pastime," Hugh stated with interest, his dark eyes watching him. "Quite."

Harry frowned at him, trying to shake off his magic, which was leaping about excitedly at meeting such an individual that was so similar to itself. "Anomaly?"

"Indeed. Surely you know about the sensation you caused? And with only one meeting, too. Quite interesting." His voice was a complex blend of emotions that could have been interpreted any which way. "You have half of them," he motioned to the gathered witches and wizards, "disliking you, the other half interested, and all of them fascinated. Everyone is asking each other; what is he doing here? Why did he decide to participate in politics?" Hugh leaned forward. "And I decided that I would be the first one to approach you."

"I am here because I received the Black title from my godfather. Nothing more, nothing less," Harry replied. "You can tell them that, too. I'm not here to be a part of some great conspiracy or anything." His own words were so much... _less _than this Hugh Westerson's. Merlin, he wanted to learn how to talk like that. He would. Everyone would listen to him, then.

"Yet nothing is ever as it seems, Lord Black-Potter." Hugh sent him a smile that dripped with secrets. "Everyone has their secrets that they keep- and everyone else has the job of finding out those secrets and exploiting them."

Harry stared at him. Hugh laughed, a rich, throaty chuckle. "You look so serious, as if I had threatened you." He paused, and a thought seemed to strike him. "You've never been exposed to politics before, have you?"

He shook his head. "No, I haven't."

"Would you like me to introduce you?" Hugh offered. "I would be willing to. This must seem like an entirely new world for you. I can help by giving some pointers and introducing you to people."

Despite his magic's urgings, or perhaps because of them, Harry looked at him warily. He needed someone to tell him how the Pastime was played, yes, but Dumbledore had offered himself to teach him...

_Dumbledore is not here, _a voice whispered to him. _And this man is. _

And, after all, wasn't he trying to become a bit more independent from everyone?

"Sure, thank you."

Hugh stood and Harry followed suite, the world developing a tinge of unreality as they approached a nearby table. Merlin. What was he doing, simply following this man? Was it just because of his magic, because of his appealing personality? The curiosity dragged him forward and his trepidation dragged him back.

And yet... "Hugh!"

The cry came from many throats. Harry couldn't help but stare as the wizard was received warmly, gladly, by multiple wizards and witches. It was very different from the welcomes he had gotten from anyone in this world of pretty colors and fancy lies. "How have you been doing?"

Hugh smirked. "As good as ever." He glanced at Harry significantly. Harry, taking his cue, moved to Hugh's side. "Everyone, this is Lord Black-Potter."

Harry bowed his head. The book had prepared him for this. "How do you do?"

They nodded to him politely. He felt like he was intruding upon them, if anything. It was tremendously awkward. Hugh didn't seem to notice.

"This is Lady Guley," he said amiably, motioning towards an imposing woman in her sixties that had the characteristic Asian eternal youth about her, "and this is Shelba Knupke,-" a young woman with fair, auburn hair- "Lord Gunthrup and Lord Amsel."

Harry nodded his head as each person was introduced. "It's good to meet you."

Chairs were conjured and room was made for them. Immediately he found himself the subject of attention. "So, the Chosen One has entered politics," said one of them. "Come to clean us up, have you?"

There was a chuckle around the table. Harry's eyebrows scrunched together in a frown. "You actually believe what the Prophet says?" He asked with disbelief before he could stop himself. He thought that politicians had more class than that.

A rather shocked silence descended upon the table. Harry blinked in confusion. Was there something wrong with what he had said? He mentally reviewed it. Merlin. Did they think he had said it condescendingly? Rudely?

They did. Abrupt laughter broke the silence. "You got balls, boy," said Lord Amsel. "I like that."

Lady Guley decided to stake her place in the conversation. "I, for one," she said, her mouth barely moving and her eyes boring into his own like daggers, "find it unwise to insult one's betters."

Harry frowned, reminded unpleasantly of Vernon Dursley. "I have a responsibility to a family just as you do," he replied. "I'm not sure what it is about you that makes you better than me." With an effort, he kept his voice as calm, pleasant, and as honest as he could. _I'm not trying to lie to you, _he mentally chanted. _I'm not trying to be cocky or disrespectful or anything! _

Lady Guley's eyes widened to the point where, in another situation, it might have been comical. Harry found it terrifying. "Why- I never have had someone speak to me in such a way! Angus was right- what ignorance! What arrogance!" She stood up. "Such behavior one would expect from a Black, but never a Potter. So many good bloodlines end with you. Such a waste."

The woman left, leaving an awkward silence behind her. Harry felt like sinking into the floor. Merlin. What had he done? This was not how he had wanted it to go! He wanted to inhale all the words he'd said and begin the evening again; what was wrong with him? He could hear Hermione berating him now; _'There's this thing called _tact,_ Harry...'_

The silence was disrupted by the sudden shutting of the doors. The clash silenced the soft buzz of conversation and everyone turned to look. Scrimgeour was making his way into the room, Lord Clearwater by his side. Harry narrowed his eyes at the sight. No wonder the Minister didn't appear to be altogether fond of him. He had Clearwater whispering in his ear.

"Everyone!" He called, jubilantly, the smile stretching across his face more predatory than he had most likely intended, "Now that the star of the night has joined us, we may begin the festivities!"

_Star of the night? _Harry scowled. So he was _that_ well liked, was he?

Food appeared before them, a luscious array of meats, fruits, and salads. _It looks almost as good as the food at Hogwarts, _he thought loyally as he watched the other people daintily fill their plates.

"So, Hugh, how goes the situation in France?" asked Lord Gunthrup. Lord Gunthrup was a rather small man who seemed to have a personality to match; it took an effort to pay him the least bit of attention. Westerson, on the other hand, seemed to have no issues with attracting attention or keeping it; his magic demanded that he be looked at.

"My shops in France are going quite splendidly," he said with a smile. "I am hoping to open a new chain of them in Germany as well. Do you think you could help me with that, Lord Amsel?"

Lord Amsel smiled as well. Smiles smiles smiles. "I vould be happy to," he replied. "You need only to vrite me-"

A smooth, cultured voice interrupted him, yet didn't. "Lord Black-Potter?" It was more of a sliding between words instead of an interruption.

Harry turned in his seat to meet the eyes of a boy not much older than he. He had golden hair and sharp features; he might've passed for a Malfoy had his hair not been more yellow than platinum. He even looked rather familiar. "Can I help you?"

"My name," he replied, "is John Clearwater." The boy- more man than boy, yet too young to be considered such- watched him for his response and continued once he'd seen what he'd wanted. "Would you like to play chess with me?"

He might've imagined it, but the atmosphere on the table suddenly seemed to change; he could not have defined how. It was only a feeling, perhaps imagined or barely seen. "I guess," he responded, warily. John Clearwater- the son of Angus Clearwater? Was this a test of some sort, to see if he was really as bad as his father said?

The smile on the other's face was one meant to disarm; Harry, despite himself, was lured in. The chess board was conjured and assembled, the pieces placed about in their squares. Harry struggled to recall everything that Ron had taught him about chess, about strategy and strengths and weaknesses; what it amounted to wasn't much of anything. Ron had always prided himself as being a chess master and Harry hadn't ever wanted or tried to take the title.

"You may go first," John Clearwater said graciously. Harry frowned and chose a pawn at random. "A7 to A6."

"Interesting choice," Clearwater murmured. "Do you believe in taking risks, Lord Potter-Black?" He asked as he moved his own pieces.

Harry blinked. "Well, yeah," he said. "Risks are a part of life."

A smile. "Very acute of you, Lord Potter-Black." Harry's brow furrowed and he moved his piece rather silently. Was it him, or had his tone been rather mocking? "Do you believe in sacrifice, Lord Potter-Black?"

"Sacrifice?"

"The giving of oneself for the sake of others."

Harry slowly became aware that people were congregating about them, watching their game with fascination. He frowned. Watching chess couldn't be that interesting, could it? Was something amiss? Was something not quite right? He couldn't say. "I'm not sure," he opted for the middle road.

"I see." Clearwater took his knight.

"Do you think that you can kill the Dark Lord Voldemort, Lord Potter-Black, as the general populace seems to think you can?

Harry blinked at the question. "I don't see how that's important," he replied with some heat. "Why the questions?"

"Just learning a bit more about you, Lord Potter-Black." His tone was condescending. Harry tensed as he took his bishop, finally understanding what was wrong. He was being played for the entertainment of the witches and wizards watching.

Bloody hell. Where was Dumbledore? "Do you like Quidditch, Lord Potter-Black?"

"Yes," Harry replied shortly, moving his king to escape Clearwater's rook. "Do you?"

"I suppose. A very... _brutal _sport. Fit for those with a warlike mind." A sharp look towards him; the audience laughed. Harry felt like upending the table and challenging the Clearwater heir to a duel. Merlin, he was like Malfoy, mean spirited and unwilling to make friends. Were all Purebloods the same, then, no matter their loyalties? How was he going to gain the respect of such people? Did he even want to?

"What is wrong with a warlike mind?" Harry asked, aware that he'd been slighted somehow and eager to defend himself. "We are in a war, after all."

The Clearwater heir's answer was more baffling than anything. "Of course." It was pitying, as if soothing a rather dull child.

In swift succession, John Clearwater took out his remaining knight and his king. The audience clapped upon the end, and Harry could detect more than a few smiles that seemed more genuine than anything he'd seen that night directed towards his opponent. It made no sense. Harry could not understand any of it; he was a fish among birds, slow and stupid and gasping to their elegant wings and sharp beaks. And he hated it.

"Thank you," said Clearwater pleasantly, offering his hand. Harry took it reluctantly, struggling to keep a flush of shame from his cheeks. Whatever he was, he wasn't going to be a sore loser. "I'm sure that next time you will provide a... _competitive _perspective, non?" Harry blinked at him, and someone nearby laughed.

Harry glared at his back. While he wasn't sure how, exactly, Clearwater had made him look stupid, slow, clumsy, and ignorant in front of many of the people present. That meant that, essentially, he'd dishonored him, but in a way that Harry could not outright fight without appearing foolish or a sore loser.

A sigh. If only he'd researched more!

But what could he research? He'd read through every book he could get his hands on- none of it helped!

"What happened?" Hugh Westerson appeared at his side. He began talking before he could respond. "I went off to browse the food- the Scrimgeours have always been well known for their salad makings. Would you like to come along and have some?"

Time drifted slowly by with all the agony of a Cruciatus. He wasn't sure what to make of Westerson, or of anyone else he met; they smirked as if they were laughing at his expense or ignored him. He missed Ron and Hermione; he wanted them at his side, to help him with this strange new world that had such peculiar beliefs and customs.

_Stop being a baby, Harry. It's time to grow up. _

But by Merlin that was harder than he'd thought it'd be.

_XXXXX _

When Harry met up with Dumbledore once more, it was late into the night, high time for leaving. Westerson had stayed by his side for the duration of the evening like a hunter stalking it's prey. He wasn't quite sure what to think of this; was Westerson attaching himself to him because he could feel Harry's magic in turn? It was a worrisome thought; it developed other, more worrying questions he really didn't want to think. What if the other wizards and witches could feel his magic, and know it for its darkness?

No one seemed to notice, though. Or perhaps they were hiding their reactions under the layers of smiling masks that they all seemed to be wearing. He shook his head and sipped his drink, a sparkling cider that tasted oddly of blueberries. All these people were crazy; how _did_ they lie without ever opening their mouths?

"Harry."

He turned, gratefully, at the sound of that old voice. "Headmaster! Where did you go? You disappeared!"

Dumbledore smiled in an odd way- it looked pained. Harry narrowed his eyes and roved over his form. He looked more healthy than a hundred year old man should; it was not his body, then, but something else. "I would ask you the same thing, my boy," he replied. His gaze turned to someone nearby and those blue eyes suddenly chilled to ice. "But I see."

Harry frowned, not understanding his tone or what he was saying. "This is Hugh Westerson, sir," he introduced tentatively. "He's been showing me around."

"Has he." Again, the odd tone he could not understand. He felt like a child, who could not define what was going on above his very head.

Westerson smiled a Pureblood smile. "Indeed. Charming boy, really. And surprising, too."

Harry frowned. While he may not know why, he could tell that Westerson was baiting Dumbledore for some reason or another- and _that_ he did not like. "Headmaster," he cut in, feeling the two men gaze at him in surprise, as if they had forgotten that he was there. "It's getting rather late- and, as I have schoolwork to finish, I would rather like to head back to Hogwarts."

He suppressed a flinch when Dumbledore's icy gaze landed upon him. There was no doubt in his mind, now, that Dumbledore was the most powerful wizard he knew; not only in magical might, but in the respect he could command with a gaze. "I was getting rather tired as well," he replied cordially. "Well, goodnight, Mr. Westerson. Do have a nice night."

Westerson ignored him rather pointedly and turned to Harry with a smile that must have been ten hundred degrees warmer than the smile he gave Dumbledore. "I'll be in contact, Harry," he winked and pivoted on his heel, marching steadily away. Harry watched him go, unable to discern what he was feeling. Was it anger? Confusion? Respect?

_'I'll be in contact.' _He did not like the sound of that. Or did he? His magic told him that he did.

"Coming, Harry?"

At the Headmaster's prompting, he came into step beside him. Scrimgeour bid them goodbye and goodnight, frosty and warm at the same time. The contradiction was too tiresome to rationalize; it was too late and too frustrating. Merlin. He was so tired of being confused. He'd studied, studied so hard, yet he had yet to see the results of his sessions in the library.

Merlin. What was he doing wrong? Perhaps...

Perhaps he was simply going about the problem in the wrong way. Perhaps it was time he truly took over the role of the Master of the Black and Potter lines.

Once they reached the inside of the carriage that would take them to the portkey point and then to Hogwarts, Harry turned to Dumbledore. He seemed lost in his thoughts; the youth that had invigorated him throughout the party had been replaced with a world-weary old age, had been replaced with an elder who could only ruminate over his past experiences now that the majority of his life was over. Harry's heart contracted painfully.

_Dumbledore in the Infirmary, dying- _

Dumbledore would not die. He would not allow him to.

"Headmaster?"

Dumbledore looked up, his blue eyes no longer ice cold, but warm and friendly. "Yes, Harry?"

"Remember when I asked you if I could go and see my properties?" At the other's nod, he continued, "Well, I think that I should do that next weekend."

Harry waited on pins and needles as Dumbledore gazed at him, searching for something- he wasn't sure what- as if he were a rock of pyrite and he had to find something of true gold within. He seemed to find it, and he relaxed. "A smart idea," he replied. "Indeed, if you would wish it, you can come to my office Saturday morning -bright and early- and I'll allow you use of my private Floo."

A bright grin. "Thanks, Headmaster!"

Dumbledore gave him a smile that was neither quite happy or sad. "Of course, Harry." The carriage rolled to a stop as he paused; there seemed to be something more he wished to say on the topic, yet did not; "And now, I believe, it is time to return to Hogwarts."

_XXXXX_


End file.
